ANTHROPOLOGY 


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A  STUDY 


IN  THE 


Civilization  and  Education 


OF 


Primitive   Man 


BY 


IQNATZ  SAYMON 


A  STUDY 


IN  THE 


Civilization  and  Education 


OP 


Primitive   Man 


BY 


IQNATZ  SAYMON 


Submitted    in    partial   fulfillment    of   the    rc.|ulrem«nt«    for    the 

Dejcrcc  of  Doctor  of  Philosophy.  New  York  University, 

June.  191  I 


A  Study  in  the  Civilization  and 
Education  of  Primitive  Man 


TABLE    OF    CONTENTS 


Chapters 

FOREWORD Page     1 

I.  Distinctions  between  Savage,  Barbarian  and  Civilized  Man     "       3 

II.  The  Prominent  Characteristics  and  Ideas  of  Primitive  Life 

(a)  Animism,    {d)  Totemism,    (c)  Taboo "     10 

III.  Nature  of  Primitive  Education 

(a)   Practical  Education,    (<J)  Theoretical  Education.     "     47 

IV.  Method  of  Primitive  Education 

(a)  Imitation,     {d)  Instruction 

' :  ;  Publib-Iiiitj'^tioii   "     51 

V.  Estimate  of  Primitive  (Civilization' afad"  E'diication "     67 

VI.  Results  of  Primitive  Civilization  and  Education "     66 

VII.  Transition  from  Lower  to  Higher  Stages "     74 

VIII.  Thoughts  Suggested  by  a  Study  in  the  Civilization  and 

Education  of  Primitive  Man "     Tl 


FOREWORD. 

To  understand  fully  wliat  man  is  to-day  \vc  must  know  what  man 
was  in  the  past.  "The  present  individual  is  the  inevitable  consequence 
of  his  antecedents  in  the  past,  and  in  the  examination  of  these  alone 
do  we  arrive  at  the  edequate  e.xplanation  of  him."*  We  realize  bet- 
ter the  meaninj;  of  our  beliefs,  our  habits,  our  ideals,  our  laws  and 
-•ur  practices  when  we  know  their  orii^in  and  can  trace  their  j^'rowth. 
Since  the  educative  process  consists  in  the  proper  direction  of  the 
developing  instinctive  activities,  and  in  furnishin};  them  with  suitable 
material  at  the  time  t»f  their  hijjihest  functionin.^^  it  is  of  the  utmost 
importance  to  education  to  know  the  history  of  the  growth  and  de- 
velopment of  man  :  for  thus  only  may  be  understood  and  appreciated 
on  the  one  hand  the  child,  and  on  the  other  hand  the  matured  experi- 
ence of  the  adult — the  two  forces  interacting  in  the  educative  pro- 
cess :t  thus  only  may  be  understood  the  meaning  of  child  psychology 
and  its  bearing  ujion  education. 

Particularly  important  is  the  period  of  primitive  man,  because 
in  this  period  were  laid  the  foundations  on  which  future  periods 
built — because  in  this  period  were  laid  the  bases  of  many  of 
our  beliefs  and  practices  and  were  developed  many  of  those  instincts 
to  which  we  have  to  give  consideration  in  education.  "The  customs, 
institutions,  and  beliefs  of  primitive  peoples  are  related  to  ours  some- 
what as  instinct  is  related  to  reason. "J  A  study  of  these  customs, 
institutions,  and  beliefs,  "gives  a  precious  kind  of  self-knowledge,  cor- 
rects undue  self-complacency,  broadens  religious  prejudice,  and  cleep- 

cns  the  sense  of  universal  brotherhood It  deepens  our  ideas  of 

God,  soul,  fate.  duty,  death  and  mortuary  custtim.  rebirth,  prophecy, 
sacraments,  rewards  and  punishments,  and  scores  of  other  concepts 
basal  for  both  religion  and  psychology. "J 

The  attention  of  this  paper  will  be  given  more  particularly  t.» 
one  phase  in  the  history  of  ancient  man.  namely,  to  his  e<lucation. 
The  education  of  a  period  is  determined,  explained,  reflected  by  the 
civilization  of  the  period ;  in  turn  the  education  of  any  period  pre- 
serves and  influences  the  civilization  of  the  period  and  furthers  pr«»g- 
rcss.  Our  plan  of  treatment  of  the  subject,  therefore,  will  be  to  note 
the  civilization  of  primitive  man — to  note  his  fundamental  character- 
istics and  ideas — the  nature  and  method  of  his  education  as  we  know- 
it  and  infer  it— and  finally  the  influence  of  that  educati-"  "k.'.-i  .  .'n 
cation  and  civilization  that  followed. 

•Maudslcy.  H— PSYCHOLOGY  &  PATHOLOGY  OF  THE  MIND,  p    7.^ 

(Quoted  hy  R.iKchot — "Phy^ics  &  V   '  •  :    8). 

t  Dewey.  J-THK  CHILD  &  THM  CI  i   M.  P  8 

tHall,  G.  S.— ADOLESCENCI-:.  Vol    11.  pp   7J".  727 


DISTlHPTtONS  BETWEEN  SAVAGE,  BARBARIAN  AND 
CIVILIZED  MAN. 

Assuming  the  theory  of  evolution  to  be  correct,  we  find  that  man, 
in  his  march  upward  toward  modern  civiHzation,  after  he  rose  above 
the  brute,  passed  through  three  particularly  marked  stages— Sav- 
agery, Barbarism,  Civilization.  '  Portions  of  the  race  have  advanced 
to  the  highest  stage  while  other  portions  have  remained  behind,  some 
at  each  of  the  lower  stages.  These  stages,  each  having  its  own  civili- 
zation and  education,  pass  insensibly  into  each  other,  yet  as  we  look 
back  we  find  that  they  are  readily  distinguishable.  "The  institutions 
of  mankind  have  sprung  up  in  a  progressive,  connected  series,  each 
of  which  represents  the  result  of  unconscious  reformatory  movement 

to  extricate  society  from  existing  evils Cases  of  physical  and 

mental  deterioration  in  tribes  and  nations  may  be  admitted,  for  rea- 
sons which  are  known,  but  they  never  interrupted  the  general  prog- 
ress of  mankind.  All  the  facts  of  human  knowledge  and  experience 
tend  to  show  that  the  human  race,  as  a  whole,  have  steadily  pro- 
gressed from  a  lower  to  a  higher  condition."*  The  theory  of  human 
degradation  or  degeneration  to  explain  the  existence  of  savages  and 
of  barbarians  is  no  longer  accepted  anywhere. 

To  explain  what  it  is  that  has  brought  about  progress,  and  also 
to  explain  what  it  is  that  has  retarded  progress,  various  theories  have 
been  advanced.  The  truth  probably  lies  in  a  combination  of  all  these 
various  explanations. 

Morgan  holds  that  "the  most  advanced  portions  of  the  human 
race  were  halted,  so  to  express  it,  at  certain  stages  of  progress,  until 
some  great  invention  or  discovery,  such  as  the  domestication  of  ani- 
mals or  the  smelting  of  iron  ore,  gave  a  new  and  powerful  impulse 

forward."t That  "it  is  probable  that  the  great  epochs  of  human 

progress  have  been  identified,  more  or  less  directly,  with  the  enlarge- 
ment of  the  sources  of  subsistence"t  and  that  "we  are  able  to  dis- 
tinguish five  of  these  sources  of  human  food,  created  by  what  may 
be  called  as  many  successive  arts,  one  superadded  to  the  other,  and 

brought  out  at  long  intervals  of  time (1)     Natural  subsistence 

upon  fruits  and  roots  on  a  restricted  habitat.  (2)  Fish  subsistence. 
(3)  Farinaceous  subsistence  through  cultivation.  (4)  Meat  and 
milk  subsistence.  (5)  Unlimited  subsistence  through  field  agricul- 
ture."! 

The  following  is  Bagehot's  explanation  of  why  some  men  have 
progressed  while  others  have  halted  or  been  arrested  in  their  prog- 
ress:   "Only  those  nations  can  progress  which  preserve  and  use  the 

♦Morgan,  L.  H.— ANCIENT  SOCIETY,  p.  58. 

t  Morgan,  L.  H.— ANCIENT  SOCIETY,  pp.  19,  22,  24,  39. 


fundamental  peculiarity  which  was  given  by  nature  to  man's  organism 
as  to  all  other  organisms.  By  a  law  of  which  we  know  no  reason,  but 
which  is  among  the  first  by  which  Providence  guides  and  governs 
the  world,  there  is  a  tendency  in  descendants  to  be  like  their  pro- 
genitors, and  yet  a  tendency  also  in  descendants  to  differ  from  their 

progenitors We  can  only  comprehend  why  so  many  nations 

have  not  varied,  when  we  see  how  hateful  variation  is;  how  every- 
body turns  against  it."*  "The  beginning  of  civilization  is  marked 
by  an  intense  legality ;  that  legality  is  the  very  condition  of  its  ex- 
istence, the  bond  which  ties  it  together;  but  that  legality — that  tend- 
ency to  impose  a  settled  customary  yoke  upon  all  men  and  all 
actions — if  it  goes  on,  kills  out  the  variability  implanted  by  nature, 
and  makes  different  men  and  ditYcrent  ages  fac-similes  of  other  men 
and  other  ages,  as  we  see  them  often.  Progress  is  only  possible  in 
those  happy  cases  where  the  force  of  legality  has  gone  far  enough 
to  bind  the  nation  together,  but  not  far  enough  to  kill  out  all  var- 
ieties and  destroy  nature's  perpetual  tendency  to  change."t  lie  men- 
tions also  other  factors  or  elements  which  have  tended  to  make  for 
progress  among  races,  namely:  (1)  mixture  of  races  (2)  political  in- 
stitutions (3)  provisional  institutions  (4)  intellectual  (|ualitics  (^\ 
moral  qualities  (6)  religion. 

Spencer  and  Gillen  point  out  that  even  among  the  custom-yoked 
savages  of  .\ustralia  the  old  men  have  authority  to  institute  slight 
changes  ;J  which  fact  gives  emphasis  to  the  influence  of  gifted  in- 
dividuals in  making  for  progress.  Such  an  explanation  would  be  in 
line  with  the  hero-worshipping  theories  that  make  all  history  center 
about  great  personalities.  But  these  great  i)ersonalities  may  be  ex- 
plained rather  as  great  minds  grasping  the  hidden  meanings  under- 
lying the  social  organization  of  their  day.  and  quick  to  perceive  and 
hasten  changes  impending  in  the  society  of  their  time.  It  seems  that 
.  the  chief  factors  in  promoting  progress  have  been  economic  factors. 
We  see  before  us  to-day.  as  we  have  seen  again  and  again  in  the  pages 
of  history,  s«3cial  consciousness  changing  as  a  result  of  economic  con- 
ditions— and  this  change  in  social  consciousness  reflecting  itself  in 
changes  in  government,  education,  morality,  business,  religion — in 
fact  in  all  our  institutional  life. 

In  distinguishing  between  savagery,  barbarism,  and  civilization, 
"the  principal  criteria  of  classitication  are  the  absence  or  presence, 
high  or  low  development,  of  the  industrial  arts,  especially  metal- 
working,  manufacture  of  implements  and  vessels,  agriculture,  archi- 
tecture, etc..  the  extent  of  scientific  knowledge,  the  definitcncss  of 

•  Bagchnt.  \V— PHYSICS  &  POUTICS.  pp.  53,  60. 
tBagchot,  \V— PHYSICS  &  POLITICS,  p   M 

t  Spencer.    B.    &    Gillen.    I"      '       -'V   •      TRIBES    OF    CENTK S- 

TK.\LIA.  p.  272. 


6 

moral  principles,  the  conditions  of  religious  belief  and  ceremony,  the 
degree  of  social  and  political  organization,  and  so  forth."* 

In  the  Savage  state  we  find  men  grouped  in  small  communities 
such  as  hordes  or  tribes,  bound  by  ties  of  kinship,  with  no  fixed  homes, 
with  labor  divided  only  as  between  man  and  woman,  with  an  absence 
of  authority  beyond  tribe  or  family,  with  no  body  of  knowledge  except 
a  system  of  prescribed  forms,  with  no  knowledge  of  metals,  with 
only  the  beginning  of  the  separation  between  the  practical  and 
theoretical.  There  is  no  skill  in  generalization  and  abstraction  ;  super- 
natural beings  are  worshipped  and  believed  in ;  there  is  no  sense  of 
values,  no  social  permanence,  no  race  consciousness.  The  people  have 
merely  the  rudiments  of  making  a  living;  they  live  as  they  go;  the 
group  rather  than  the  individual,  is  the  unit.  Occupations  are  hunting 
and  fishing;  some  little  work  is  done  with  wood  and  bone  and  fibre. 
They  have  no  written   records ;  they  know  neither  past  nor  future. 

"The  barbarian  as  distinguished  from  the  savage  stage  of  cul- 
ture, begins  at  the  point  where  men  learn  to  control  natural  forces — 
fire,  water,  wind — and  apply  them  directly  to  the  satisfaction  of  their 
own  desires. "f  So  long  as  these  forces  were  regarded  by  man  with 
awe,  so  long  as  he  tried  to  influence  them  through  magical  rites,  so 
long  did  they  elude  his  control;  and  it  required  a  breaking  away 
from  tradition,  and  an  advance  from  the  religious  to  the  scientific 
attitude,  to  enable  man  to  apply  them  to  his  uses. 

In  barbarism  we  find  the  land  bond  replacing  the  kin  or  blood 
bond  as  the  basis  of  community,  and  giving  rise  thus  to  political 
organization.  There  is  more  varied  experience,  and  a  greater  divi- 
sion of  functions,  giving  rise  to  such  institutions  as  caste.  Fire  and 
its  uses  are  better  known ;  work  in  metals  is  done ;  and  hunting  and 
fishing  give  place  to  agricultural  life.  There  is  complete  subordina- 
tion of  the  individual  to  institutions ;  institutions  are  considered  divine 
in  origin  and  must  not  be  changed ;  absolute  conformity  is  sought ; 
individual  powers  are  not  encouraged;  there  is  prejudice  against  every 
form  of  human  change.  The  form  of  government  is  patriarchal ;  the 
group,  and  not  the  individual,  is  still  the  starting  point  and  the  unit. 
There  is  no  distinction  of  right  and  wrong  as  such;  "the  whole  con- 
ception of  morality  is  ceremonial — a  system  of  acts,  not  a  system 
of  principles."  We  have  rigidity  and  absolute  conservatism — an  end- 
less recapitulation  of  the  past.  In  religion,  animism  gives  place  to 
polytheism.  We  now  have  a  worship  of  deities — beings  like  men — 
a  transition  from  special  spirits  investing  special  objects  to  deities 
investing  realms  of  nature :  various  gods  representing  different  moral 
attributes,  and  organized  under  an  overlord — in  the  form  of  the  hu- 

*Tylor,  E.  B.— PRIMITIVE  CULTURE,  Vol.  I,  pp.  26,  27. 
t  Davidson,  Th.— HISTORY  OF  EDUCATION,  p.  25. 


man  family  or  of  the  prevailing'  monarchial  foii..  ...   ^.)vcrnmcnt — a 
conception  that  paved  the  way  for  nu)notheism. 

The  change  to  civiUzation  is  marked  by  emancipation  from  the 
rule  of  caste  ami  custom — emancipation  from  the  slavery  of  institu- 
tions. Man  becomes  master  oi  institutions  ;  he  docs  not  abolish  them  ; 
he  begins  to  rej^ard  them  as  means,  not  ends.  In  this  stage  there  is  de- 
veloped a  constantly  growing  system  of  morality  based  on  rational 
principles  and  innate  sanction  ;  religion  is  monotheistic.  There  is  a 
steady  development  to  individualism.  Men's  choice  determines  nearly 
all  they  do.  Knowledge  in  all  lines  is  now  regarded  as  illimitable, 
of  human  origin,  and  to  be  added  to  and  developed.  Progress,  im- 
provement, change  for  the  better — these  are  ideals  of  civilization. 
k^  The  savage  period  was  immeasurably  long ;  the  period  of  barbar- 
ism was  much  shorter;  and  the  period  of  civilization  is  as  yet  very 
short.  The  transition,  therefore,  from  savagery  to  barbarism  was 
very  slow,  and  the  transition  from  barbarism  to  civilization  was  much 
more  rapid.  That  is  to  say.  there  is  rapid  acceleration  in  progress. 
"If  we  assume  a  hundred  thousand  years  as  the  measure  of  man's 

existence  upon  the  earth at  least  sixty  thousand  years  must 

be  assigned  to  the  period  of  savagery," thirty-five  thousand 

years  should  be  assigned   to  the  period  of  barl)arism.  "leaving  five 

thousand,  more  or  less,  for  the  period  of  civilization Human 

progress,  from  first  to  last,  has  been  in  a  ratio  not  rigorously  but 
essentially  geometrical."* 


CH.'XPTER  II 

PROMINENT  CHARACTERISTICS  AND  IDEAS 
OF   PRIMITIVE   LIFE. 

Primitive  life  is  very  similar  all  tiie  world  over.  "One  set  of 
savages  is  like  another."  (Dr.  Johnson.)  In  trying,  therefore,  to  get 
a  knowledge  of  ancient,  primitive  man.  we  are  much  aided  by.  in  fact 
^-nve  largely  ba.se  it  on  a  study  of  savages  living  at  present.  "Prehis- 
toric man  was  substantially  a  savage  like  present  savages,  in  morals, 
intellectual  attainments,  and  in  religion ;  but  he  differed  in  this  from 
the  present  savages,  that  he  ha<l  not  had  time  to  ingrain  his  nature 
so  deeply  with  bad  habits,  and  to  impress  l)ad  beliefs  so  unalterably 
on  his  mind  as  they  have.  They  have  had  ages  to  fix  the  stain  on 
themselves,  but  primitive  man  was  younger  and  had  no  such  time. 

His  nature  was  still  soft  and  still  impressible,  and  possibly his 

•  Morgan,  L.  H.— ANCIENT  SOCIKTY.  pp  3H.  37 


8 

outward  circumstances  were  more  favorable  to  an  attainment  of 
civilization  than  those  of  our  present  savages."* 

No  group  of  people  can  exist  together  for  any  length  of  time 
I  without  somehow,  consciously  or  unconsciously,  creating  a  system  of 
explanations  of   things,   which  becomes  the  common   belief  of  that 
people — becomes  their  philosophy  and  religion. 

Until  recently,  whenever  a  study  of  primitive  man  was  under- 
taken it  was  customary  to  try  to  discover  the  underlying  "ideas"  of 
their  various  customs,  habits  and  institutions.  But  the  recent  de- 
velopment in  functional  psychology  has  shed  a  new  light  upon  this 
vast  foundation  of  present  man.  It  explains  the  development  of  primi- 
tive customs,  habits,  and  institutions  as  a  result  of  biological  impul- 
sive action — as  natural  growths  slowly  developed  from  forms  of  primi- 
tive function  or  primitive  experience.  "It  is  now  seen  that  habits  are 
often  established  by  direct  response  to  needs,  without  the  mediation 

of  cognitive  reflection The  fallacy  that  uniform  and  involved 

conduct  which  attains  important  ends  must  spring  from  the  idea 
of  such  ends  is  well  exposed  by  reference  to  the  conduct  of  animals 
whose  behavior  cannot  be  attributed  to  knowledge. "t  We  therefore 
explain  many  habits  of  man  as  being  based  upon  certain  fundamental 
impulses  which  he  possesses  in  common  with  the  higher  animals, 
which  habits  after  being  established  have  in  turn  led  to  the  develop- 
ment of  certain  ideas. 

^  The  original  impulses  are  those  of  food  and  sex — of  self-preser- 
vation and  race  preservation.  Satisfactory  reactions  in  the  function- 
ing of  these  impulses  probably  led  to  repetition  of  those  modes  of 
functioning  which  led  to  those  satisfactory  re-actions ;  and  this  led  to 
the  creation  of  "values" :  such  conduct  was  thereafter  the  right  and 
proper  conduct  for  such  occasions.  Thus  methods  of  action  led  to 
certain  definite  habits  for  meeting  the  few  needs  of  primitive  life. 
"From  recurrent  needs  arise  habits  for  the  individual  and  customs 
for  the  group,  but  these  results  are  consequences  which  were  never 
-^  conscious  and  never  foreseen  or  intended. "$  These  habits  and  cus- 
toms gain  sanctions  or  sacredness  with  age :  they  lead  to  the  develop- 
ment of  certain  ideas,  and  values,  and  institutions,  which  in  turn  lead 
to  the  development  of  other  habits ;  and  so  the  circle  continues — func- 
tion leads  to  thought  and  thought  influences  function. 

As  we  are  particularly  interested  in  the  education  of  primitive 

*  Bagehot,  W.— PHYSICS  &  POLITICS,  p.  134. 

tAmes,    E.    S.— THE    PSYCHOLOGY    OF    RELIGIOUS    EXPERIENCE, 

pp.  56,  57. 
JAmes,    E.    S.— THE    PSYCHOLOGY    OF    RELIGIOUS    EXPERIENCE, 

p.  59,  (Quoted  from  W.  G.  Sumner  "Folkways,"  p.  4). 


9 

man,  let  us  look  at  the  details  of  organization  (.i  In^  liic.  for  these 
must  explain  the  educational  system  of  that  period. 

The  first  thinjj  that  strikes  us  in  connection  with  primitive  or- 
ganization is  the  fact  that  the  individual  has  not  yet  emerged  from 
tribal  consciousness.  Another  matter  of  prominence  is  the  fact  that 
in  aildition  to  organization  into  clans  there  is  a  separation  of  males 
and  females  into  separate  classes,  or  organizations,  as  in  Australia 
anil  the  Malay  Archipelago.  Of  course,  the  men  have  ditTercnt  occu- 
pations, and  so  have  the  women.  The  choice  of  occupations  is  prob- 
ahlv  based  on  physical  characteristics  and  functions,  and  in  turn  leads 
to  emphasis  and  development  ui  these  characteristics,  as  well  as  to  the 
development  of  distinct  spiritual  characteristics.  We  find  man  con- 
nected with  the  more  violent  activities  involved  in  hunting  and  fight- 
ing. Woman,  on  the  other  hand,  kept  to  a  more  fi.xed  point  on  account 
of  the  children,  gives  her  attention  to  such  industries  as  lead  to  de- 
velopment of  agriculture,  pottery,  weaving  and  domestication  of  ani- 
,mals.  The  fundamental  social  bond  is  that  between  the  mother  and 
the  child.  The  woman  cares  for  the  children;  she  cares  for  the  prop- 
erty; docent  is  reckoned  in  her  line;  she  domesticates  man  and  leads 
to  the  development  of  many  of  those  spiritual  qualities  which  we 
prize  so  highly.  "While  woman  had  been  doing  the  general  work  and 
had  developed  the  beginnings  of  many  industries,  man  had  become  a 
specialist  along  another  line.  His  occupation  had  been  almost  ex- 
clusively the  pursuit  of  animals  or  conflict  with  his  neighbors,  and  in 
this  connection  he  had  become  the  inventor  of  weapons  and  traps,  and 
in  addition  had  learned  the  value  of  acting  in  concert  with  his  com- 
panions. But  a  hunting  life  cann«)t  last  forever;  and  when  large  game 
began  to  be  exhausted,  man  found  himself  forced  to  abandon  his  de- 
structive and  predacious  activities,  and  adopt  the  settled  occupations 
of  woman.  To  these  he  brought  all  the  inventive  technique  and  capac- 
ity for  organized  action  which  he  had  developed  in  his  hunting  and 
fighting  life,  with  the  result  that  he  became  the  master  of  woman  in 
a  new  sense.  Not  suddenly,  but  in  the  course  of  time,  he  usurped  her 
primacy  in  the  industrial  pursuits,  and  through  his  organization  of 
industry  and  the  aj)plication  of  invention  to  the  industrial  processes 
became  a  creator  of  wealth  on  a  scale  before  unknown."* 

The  habits  of  primitive  people,  built  up  in  connection  with  their 
occupations,  are  reflected  in  their  institutions  of  religion,  law,  art, 
science,  which  can  hardly  be  distinguished  from  each  other.  Organi- 
zation in  clans,  or  as  Morgan  calls  them,  gcntcs,  was  nearly  the  uni- 
versal  plan  of  ancient  society.      In  connection   with  clan  organiza- 

•  Thomas.  W    I.— SEX  &  SOCIETY,  pp.  230.  231 


/ 


tion  the  main  features  are,  (1)  the  bond  of  kin;  (2)  descent  in  the 
female  line;  (3)  non  inter-marriage  in  the  clan. 

In  connection  with  the  tie  of  kin  it  should  be  noted  that  it  is 
not  necessarily  blood  relationship.  "The  practical  test  of  kinship  is 
that  the  whole  kin  is  answerable  for  the  life  of  each  of  its  members 

The  idea  that  kinship  is  not  purely  an  afifair  of  birth,  but  may 

be  acquired,  has  quite  fallen  out  of  our  circle  of  ideas ;  but  so,  for  that 
matter,  has  the  primitive  conception  of  kindred  itself.     To  us  kinship 

has  no  absolute  value,  but  is  measured  by  degrees In  ancient 

times,  on  the  contrary,  the  fundamental  obligations  of  kinship  had 
nothing  to  do  with  degrees  of  relationship,  but  rested  with  absolute 
and  identical  force  on  every  member  of  the  calm.  To  know  that  a 
man's  life  was  sacred  to  me,  and  that  every  blood-feud  that  touched 
him  involved  me  also,  it  was  not  necessary  for  me  to  count  cousinship 
with  him  by  reckoning  up  to  our  common  ancestor;  it  was  enough 
that  we  belonged  to  the  same  clan  and  bore  the  same  clan  name. 
What  was  my  clan  was  determined  by  customary  law,  which  was 
not  the  same  in  all  stages  of  society ;  in  the  earliest  Semitic  communi- 
ties a  man  was  of  his  mother's  clan,  in  later  times  he  belonged  to  the 
clan  of  his  father.  But  the  essential  idea  of  kinship  was  independent 
of  the  particular  form  of  the  law.  A  kin  was  a  group  of  persons  whose 
lives  were  so  bound  up  together,  in  what  must  be  called  a  physical 
unity,  that  they  could  be  treated  as  parts  of  one  common  life.  The 
members  of  one  kindred  looked  on  themselves  as  one  living  whole,  a 
single  animated  mass  of  blood,  flesh  and  bones,  of  which  no  member 
could  be  touched  without  all  the  members  suffering."* 

"The  strong  conception  of  the  tie  of  blood,  best  seen  in  feudal 
and  semi-civilized  societies,  is  by  no  means  so  strong  in  primitive 
culture Psychologically  speaking,  relationship  developes  orig- 
inally from  relations,  and  in  primitive  thought,  relations  are  the  test 

of  kinship  and  not  vice  versa Of  other  forms,  firstly,  identity  of 

sex  very  commonly  amounts  to  a  relationship,  and  where  sexual  taboo 
is  well  developed,  it  is  perhaps  the  strongest  tie  of  all.  It  is  a  result 
of  sexual  solidarity,  and  assumes  various  forms.     For  instance  each 

sex  has  a  totem All  members  of  a  totem-clan  are  regarded  as 

"relations" Primitive  relationship,  it  is  clear,  is  at  once  stronger 

and  weaker  than  the  civilized  tie ;  weaker,  because  the  bond  of  blood 
has  not  assumed  a  superiority  over  other  relations,  close  contact  be- 
ing the  test ;  stronger,  because  the  ideas  of  contact  which  characterize 
these  relations  have  so  intense  a  religious  meaning  and  enforce  duty 
so  stringently."! 

*  Smith,  W.  R.— THE  RELIGION  OF  THE  SEMITES,  pp.  272,  273,  275. 
t  Crawley,  E.— THE  MYSTIC  ROSE,  pp.  452,  454,  457,  460. 


11 

As  to  descent  throuj;h  the  I'ctnalc.  \vc  cannot  say  whether  this 
was  at  any  time  a  universal  practice.  There  is  no  tloubt,  tliuugh,  tliat 
it  has  prevailed  very  lar;^'ely ;  it  has  been  found  to  exist  to  a  ^cat  cv- 
tent  in  Australia  and  Africa  ami  traces  of  it  are  seen  in  Japan,  China, 
Arabia.  Imlia,  and  anionic  the  Hebrews.  McLennan  e.xplained  de- 
scent through  the  female  side  as  due  to  primitive  promiscuity  and 
doubtful  paternity,  but  "descent  throuj^h  females  is  not.  in  fact,  fully 
explained  by  uncertainty  of  parentage  on  the  male  side.  It  is  due  to 
the  larger  social  fact,  inckuling  this  biological  one.  that  the  bond  be- 
tween mother  and  child  is  the  closest  in  nature,  and  that  the  group 
grew  up  about  the  more  stationary  female."*  Prt)f.  Crawley  says: 
**It  is  a  method  of  tracing  genealogy,  more  convenient  in  i)olygamous 
societies,  and  more  natural  in  i)riniiti\e  times,  when  the  close  con- 
nection of  mother  and  child  during  the  early  days  of  infancy  em- 
phasizes the  relation \\  hy  did  not  early  peoples  trace  descent 

in  the  apparently  obvious  way,  from  both  father  and  mother?  For 
the  same  reason  that  we,  for  instance,  use  the  paternal  name  to  trace 
descent.  In  the  ages  before  writing,  the  use  of  both  parents'  names 
and  their  application  to  children  would  be  too  complicated,  as  it  still 
is  found. "t 

Intermarriage  within  the  gens  or  clan,  wc  shall  discuss  more 
fully  in  explaining  that  remarkable  institution  of  primitive  man  known 
as  exogamy. 

Morgan,  in  criticising  the  positions  of  Grote,  Xiebuhr,  Thirwall, 
Maine  and  Mommsen  who  make  the  monogamian  family  of  patri- 
archal type  as  an  integer  around  which  society  integrates,  says  that 
the  gens  is  not  foundeil  on  family,  (irote  speaks  of  gens  as  an  exten- 
sion of  family  and  as  prc-supposing  its  existence,  treating  family  as 
primary  and  gens  as  secondary.  "This  view."  says  Morgan,  "is  un- 
tenable.    The  two  organizations  proceed  upon  ditTerent  principles  and 

are  independent  of  each  other In  the  organization  of  gentile 

society  the  gens  is  primary,  forming  both  the  basis  and  the  unit  of  the 

system.     The  family  also  is  primary,  and  olcler  than  the  gens; 

but  it  was  not  a  member  of  the  organic  series  in  ancient  society  any 
more  than  in  modern. "J 

Morgan  believes  that  there  was  a  time  when  there  was  promiscu- 
ous marriage,  and  that  marriage  has  reached  its  present  development 
by  passitig  through  various  stages  of  evolution,  just  like  other  insti- 
tutions. In  this  view  he  seems  to  be  supported  by  McLennan,  Luh- 
bf>ck.  Fison  and    Howitt  and  also  by  Spencer  and  Gillcn   who  con- 

•Thoin,is.  \V,  I  — .SLX  A:  S<  'Cll.  I  'i.  j)   «>. 

t  Crawley.  K— THK  MYSTIC  kOSK.  pp.  460.  461. 

tMorpan.  L    H— ANCIENT  SOCIETY,  pp    IM*.  237. 


12 

sider  the  forms  of  "group"  marriage,  now  existent  among  various 
tribes,  as  being  evidences  of  a  previous  system  of  promiscuous  mar- 
riage. 

Westermarck,  our  greatest  authority  on  the  subject  of  marriage, 
criticises  the  theories  of  marriage,  of  Lubbock,  Spencer,  Tylor  and 
Morgan.  "It  is  not,  of  course,  impossible  that,  among  some  people, 
intercourse  between  the  sexes  may  have  been  almost  promiscuous. 
But  there  is  not  a  shred  of  genuine  evidence  for  the  notion  that 
promiscuity  ever  formed  a  general  stage  in  the  social  history  of  man- 
kind."   "In  all  probability  there  has  been  no  stage  of  human 

development  when  marriage  has  not  existed."* 

Darwin,  also,  questions  promiscuous  intermarriage  as  ever  hav- 
ing obtained  in  man,  and  Peschel  agreeing  with  Darwin,  says  "that 
at  any  time  and  in  any  place  the  children  of  the  same  mother  have 
propagated  themselves  sexually,  for  any  long  period,  has  been  ren- 
dered especially  incredible,  since  it  has  been  established  that  even  in 
the  case  of  organisms  devoid  of  blood,  such  as  the  plants,  reciprocal 
fertilization  of  the  descendants  of  the  same  parents  is  to  a  great 
extent  impossible."!  Spencer,  too,  questions  the  promiscuity  theory. 
"I  do  not  think  the  evidence  shows  that  promiscuity  ever  existed  in 

an  unqualified  form The  impulses  which  lead  primitive  men 

to  monopolize  other  objects  of  value,  must  lead  them  to  monopolize 

women Everywhere  promiscuity,  however  marked,  is  qualified 

by  unions  having  some  persistence."! 

Professor  Crawley  thinks  that  Spencer  and  Gillen  have  misunder- 
stood the  meaning  and  origin  of  the  facts  they  bring  forward  in  con- 
nection with  the  details  and  rules  of  "group"  marriage ;  that  "pro- 
miscuity would  not  leave,  as  its  results  a  system  so  exact  that  inter- 
marriage with  the  wrong  class  is  considered  a  crime."§  He  and  Pro- 
fessor Thomas  support  Westermarck  in  what  seems  to  be  to-day  the 
most  acceptable  view — that,  at  any  rate  since  man  arose  above  the 
highest  of  animals,  there  has  always  existed  some  form  of  monogam- 
ous or  quasi-monogamous  institution :  that  such  an  institution  is  fav- 
orable to  the  rearing  and  training  of  children  and  therefore  the  groups 
practicing  it  would  have  the  best  chance  of  survival :  that  the  law  of 
natural  selection  would  operate  to  preserve  such  groups  since  the 
children  would  be  better  trained  and  nourished. 

The  most  important  feature  of  the  primitive  marriage  system  is 
what  McLennan  has  called  exogamy.    The  commonest  form  is  to  have 

*  Westermarck,  E.— THE  HISTORY  OF  HUMAN  MARRIAGE,  pp.  133,  549. 
t  Peschel,  O.— RACES  OF  MAN,  p.  232   (Quoted  from   L.   H.   Morgan.  AN- 
CIENT SOCIETY,  p.  422). 
$  Spencer,  H.— THE  PRINCIPLES  OF  SOCIOLOGY,  Vol.   I,  pp.  632,  634. 
§  Crawley,  E.— THE  MYSTIC  ROSE,  p.  477. 


18 

the  members  of  the  tribe  divided  into  two  classes  for  purposes  of 
marriaj^e,  the  members  of  one  class  bein^j  forbidden  to  marry  in  their 
own  class,  but  bound  to  marry  into  the  other.  In  addition  to  this, 
usually,  each  of  these  marriage  classes  is  subdivided  into  several  sub- 
classes or  totem-classes,  and  there  is  a  rule  by  which  certain  ones  of 
these  totem-classes  must  intermarry.  Descent  is  in  the  female  line. 
Those  violating  the  rules  of  exoj.,'amy  are  punished  by  the  clan,  some- 
times by  their  nearest  relatives,  the  penalty  usually  beinjj  death. 

The  followini;  are  two  examples  of  such  exogamous  organiza- 
tions: I.  "The  whole  tribe  (L'rabunna)  is  divided  up  into  two  exo- 
gamous  intermarrying  classes,  which  are  respectively  called  Mat- 
thurie  and  Kirarawa,  and  the  members  of  each  of  these  again  are 
divided  into  a  series  of  totemic  groups.  A  Matthurie  man  must  marry 
a  Kirarawa  woman,  and  not  only  this,  but  a  man  of  one  totem  must 
marry  a  woman  of  another  totem,  certain  totems  being  confined  to 
each  of  the  exogamous  classes.  Thus  a  dingo  marries  a  watcrhen,  a 
cicada  a  crow,  an  emu  a  rat,  a  wild  turkey  a  cloud,  a  swan  a  pelican, 
and  so  on.'**  Descent  is  counted  through  tlic  mother,  both  as  re- 
gards class  and  totem. 


CLASS  TOTEM 


Mattliuric 


r  Wild  duck 
Cicada 
Dingo 
Emu 

W  ild  turkey 
Black  swan 


I 


Kirarawa 


r  Cloud 
Carpet  snake 
Lace  lizard 


'    \    Pelican 
'    Water  1 


hen 
Crow 


II.  As  may  be  seen  from  the  following  table,  which  represents 
the  Kamilaroi  Tribe  in  New  South  Wales,  Murri  can  only  marry 
Kumbo  and  vice  versa;  Kiil»i  can  only  marry  Ipai;  and  vice  versa. 
The  children  arc  born  into  the  sub-class  neither  of  their  father  nor 
of  their  mother. 

•Spencer,  n  and  Gillen.  F.  J.— NATIVE  TRIBES  OF  CENTRAL  AUS- 
TR.NLIA.  pp  50.  (0 

t  Spencer.  H  and  Gillen.  V  J -NATIVE  TRIBES  OF  CENTRAL  AUS- 
TRALIA, pp.  59.  60 


14 


CLASSES 


Kupathin 


Dilbi 


SUB-CLASSES 


TOTEMS 


r  Kangaroo,  opossum, 
I    bandicott,  black  duck, 
J    padi-melon,  eagle-hawk, 

scrub-turkey,  yellow  fish, 

honey-fish,   bream 


Ipai 
Kumbo 


Murri 
Kubbi 


(^  emu,  carpet-snake,  black 
I    snake,  red  kangaroo, 
j    honey,  Walleroo,  frog. 
I    codfish 


MALE 


MARRIES 


CHILDREN  ARE 


Ipai 
Kumbo 
Murri 
Kubbi 


Kubbitha 
Matha 
Butha 
Ipatha 


Murri  and  Matha 
Kubbi  and  Kubbitha 
Ipai  and  Ipatha 
Kumbo   and    Butha 


Scarcity   of  women   resulting  in   marriage  by  capture  has   been 
assumed  by  McLennan  to  have  produced  exogamy.     "The  practice 

in  early  times  of  female  infanticide rendering  women  scarce, 

led  at  once  to  polyandry  within  the  tribe,  and  the  capturing  of  women 

from  without The  scarcity  of  women  within  the  group  led  to 

a  practice  of  stealing  the  women  of  other  groups,  and  in  time  it  came 
to  be  considered  improper,  because  it  was  unusual  for  a  man  to  marry 
a  woman  of  his  own  group."t  But  recent  evidence  shows  that  mar- 
riage by  capture  was  not  very  prevalent.  "There  is  no  evidence  that 
capture  ever  formed  a  regular  or  important  means  of  getting  wives 

Misapprehension  as  to  the  prevalence  of  marriage  by  capture  is 

due  in  the  main  to  two  causes :  (1)  cases  of  elopment  have  been  classed 
as  cases  of  capture ;  (2)  the  so-called  survivals  of  marriage  by  capture 
in  historical  times  of  which  so  much  has  been  made,  are  merely  sys- 
tematized expressions  of  the  coyness  of  the  female,  differing  in  no 
essential  point  from  the  coyness  of  the  female  among  birds  at  the 
pairing  season. "$  The  general  unscientific  nature  of  the  theory  of 
Marriage  by  Capture  has  been  demonstrated  by  Mr.  Fison  and  Dr. 
Westermarck The  theory that  mankind  in  general,  or 

*  Howitt  A  W— NATIVE  TRIBES  OF  SOUTH-EAST  AUSTRALIA,  p.  200. 
t  McLennan,  J.  F.— STUDIES  IN  ANCIENT  HISTORY,  pp.  75,  160. 
$  Thomas,  W.  I.— SEX  &  SOCIETY,  p.  189. 


16 

even  any  particular  section  of  mankind,  ever  in  normal  circumstances 
were  accustomed  to  obtain  their  wives  by  capture  from  other  tribes, 
may  be  regarded  as  exploded.  There  have  been,  of  course,  and  still 
are,  sporadic  cases  of  capture  of  wives  from  hostile  tribes  or  others, 

but  such  cannot  prove  a  rule Messrs.  Spencer  and  Gillcn  point 

out  that  it  is  of  the  rarest  occurrence  among  the  Central  Australians, 
and  that  when  it  does  occur,  it  arises  out  of  an  expedition  of  venge- 
ance against  a  hostile  tribe Exogamy  is  by  no  means  the  result 

of  real  or  any  sort  of  capture Capture  cannot  be  proved  uni- 
versal enough  to  have  given  rise  to  so  widely  spread  a  system  as 

exogamy It  is  now  perhaps  evident  that  it  is  not  the  tribe  from 

which  the  bride  is  abducted,  nor,  primarily,  iicr  family  and  kindred, 
but  her  sex."* 

Morgan,  supjiortcd  by  Fison  and  Howitt,  Frazer,  and  Spencer 
and  Gillen,  holds  that  exogamy  was  proliably  introduced  to  prevent 
marriage  or  cohabitation  between  blood  relations — especially  between 
brothers  and  sisters — at  the  time  when  promiscuity  prevailed.  "It 
is  explainable  only  as  a  reformatory  movement  to  break  up  inter- 
marriage of  blood  relatives,  and  j)articularly  brothers  and  sisters  by 
compelling  them  to  marry  out  of  the  tribe.  This  view  furnishes.  I 
believe,  the  true  key  to  the  whole  system  of  exogamy. "f 

Spencer  also  rejects  McLennan's  explanation  of  exogamy,  and 
suggests  as  its  origin  the  fact  that  as  a  result  of  war  it  would  become 
customary  for  the  victors  to  have  as  wives  foreign  women ;  that  "non- 
possession  of  a  foreign  wife  will  come  to  be  regarded  as  a  proof  of 
cowardice  ;"J  that  thus  would  arise  an  ambition  and  custom  of  hav- 
ing as  wives  women  not  belonging  to  one's  own  tribe. 

Wcstermarck's  explanation  is  as  follows:  "I  pointed  out  that 
there  is  an  innate  aversion  to  sexual  intercourse  between  persons  liv- 
\ing  very  closely  together  from  early  youth,  and  that,  as  such  persons 
are  in  most  cases  related  by  blood,  this  feeling  would  naturally  dis- 
play itself  in  custom  and  law  as  a  horror  of  intercourse  between  near 

kin It  is  not  in  the  first  place  by  the  degrees  of  consanguinity, 

but  by  the  close  living  together,  that  prohibitory  laws  against  inter- 
marriage are  determined .Aversion  to  the  intermarriage  «)f  per- 
sons who  live  together  in  intimate  connection  with  one  another  has 
called  forth  prohibitions  of  the  intermarriage  of  relations;  and.  as  kin- 
ship is  traced  by  means  of  a  system  of  names,  the  name  comes  to  be 

considered  identical  with  relationship I  have  suggeste<l  that  it 

may  be  the  result  of  natural  selection I  am  inclined  to  think 

that  consanguineous  marriages  arc  in  some  way  or  other  detrimental 

•Crawley.  K— THK  MYSTIC  <   .V>7.  3^i8.  370 

+  Frazer.  J    G— TOTKMISM  ^  v.MY.  Vol    IV.  pp    104.  105 

t  Spencer.  H— THE  PRINCIPLtS  UF  SOCIOLOGY.  Vol.  I.  p.  621. 


16 

to  the  species,  and  here  I  find  a  quite  sufficient  explanation  of  the 
horror  of  incest ;  not  because  man  at  an  early  stage  recognized  the 
injurious    influence   of   close   intermarriage,   but   because   the   law   of 

natural  selection  must  inevitably  have  operated Those  of  our 

ancestors  who  avoided  in-and-out  breeding  would  survive,  while  the 
others  would  gradually  decay  and  ultimately  perish.  Thus  a  senti- 
ment would  be  developed  which  would  be  powerful  enough,  as  a  rule, 

to  prevent  injurious  unions And  exogamy,  resulting  from  a 

natural  extension  of  this  sentiment  to  a  larger  group,  would  arise 
when  single  families  united  into  hordes."* 

Dr.  Westermarck's  theory  is  criticised  by  Prof.  Crawley,  whc 
says:  "Dr.  Westermarck's  explanation  of  the  prohibition  against  the 
marriage  of  near  kin  is  mistaken.  He  supposes  that  there  is  a  gen- 
eral human  "instinct"  against  inbreeding,  resulting  from  the  survival 
of  those  peoples  who  have  avoided  it,  inbreeding  being  assumed  to 

be  deleterious It  is  the  application  of  sexual  taboo  to  brothers 

and  sisters,  who,  because  they  are  of  opposite  sexes,  of  the  same  gen- 
eration, and  are  in  close  contact,  and  for  no  other  reasons,  are  re- 
garded as  potentially  marriageable,  that  is  the  foundation  of  exog- 
amy and  the  marriage  system The  cause   which   prevents 

these  people  from  marrying  is  identical  with  that  which  prevents 
others  in  the  Jike  relation  both  from  betraying  one  another,  and  from 
having  any  physical  contact,  the  relation  of  marriage  being  in  primi- 
tive thought  a  dangerous  one Robertson  Smith  set  the  ques- 
tion in  the  right  direction  when  he  said  ("Kinship  and  Marriage  in 
Early  Arabia,"  p.  107)  :  'Whatever  is  the  origin  of  bars  to  marriage, 
they  certainly  are  early  associated  with  the  feeling  that  it  is  indecent 
for  housemates  to  intermarry.'  If  we  apply  to  the  word  'indecent' 
the  connotation  of  sexual  taboo,  which  gave  rise  amongst  other  things 
to  the  especial  meaning  of  this  word,  and  if  we  understand  by  'house- 
mates' those  upon  whom  sexual  taboo  concentrates,  we  have  ex- 
plained exogamy. "t  "The  other  factor  in  the  simple  form  of  the 
prohibition  is  a  psychological  result  of  sexual  solidarity  and  sexual 
taboo.  The  bringing-up  of  children  in  this  manner  produces  what  is 
a  psychological  impossibility  of  sexual  love  between  brothers  and 
sisters.  Separation  before  the  sexual  instinct  shows  itself,  has  in 
effect  set  the  consciousness  outwards  by  the  time  puberty  arrives, 
and  then,  when  the  sexual  instinct  has  appeared,  it  is  biassed  towards 
realisation  out  of  the  "house,"  and  this  is  what  actually  occurs;  for 
out  of  the  house  the  prohibition  is  not  so  stringent  nor  so  carefully 
enforced,  while  love  is  produced  by  chance  meetings  with  acquaint- 

*  Westermarck,  E.— THE  ORIGIN  AND  THE  DEVELOPMENT  OF  THE 

MORAL  IDEAS?  Vol.  II,  pp.  368,  371. 
t  Crawley,  E.— THE  MYSTIC  ROSE,  pp.  223,  266,  443,  444. 


17 

ances.  This  coincides  with  the  psycliolo^ical  fact  that  love's  awaken- 
injj  turn>  the  mind  away  from  what  is  familiar  and  known  towards 
what  is  stranj^c  and  romantic."* 

What  seems  to  me  the  best  explanation  is  that  sujjgested  by 
Prof.  Thomas:  "The  movement  toward  e.xo^amy  doubtless  origin- 
ates in  the  restlcssnos  of  the  male,  the  tendency  to  make  new  co- 
ordinations,  the  stimukis   to  seek   more   unfamiliar   women,   and   the 

emotional  interest  in  makini;  unfamiliar  sexual  alliances Natural 

selection  favors  the  process  by  si)arinL^  the  j^roups  which  by  breeding; 

out  have  heij.;htcned  their  physical  vij^or The  man  makes,  and. 

by  force  of  convention,  hnally  must  make,  his  matrimonial  alliances 
only  with  women  of  other  groups ;  but  the  woman  still  remains  in 
her  own  {.jroup.  and  the  children  arc  members  of  her  j^roup,  while 
the  husband  remains  a  member  of  his  own  clan,  and  is  received,  or 
may  be  received,  as  a  ^uest  in  the  clan  of  his  wife.  Upon  his  death 
his  property  is  not  shared  by  his  children,  nor  by  his  wife,  since 
these  are  not  members  of  his  clan  ;  but  it  falls  to  the  nearest  of  kin 
within  his  clan — usually  to  his  sister's  children. "f  "Familiarity  with 
women  within  the  group  and  unfamiliarity  with  women  without  the 
group  is  the  explanation  of  exogamy  on  the  side  of  interest ;  and  the 
system  oi  exoj^amy   is   a   result  of  exchanging  familiar   women   for 

others It  is  a  well-known  condition  of  exogamy  that,  while  a 

man  must  marry  without  his  clan,  he  must  not  marry  without  his 
tribe,  and  for  the  most  part,  in  fact,  the  clan  into  which  he  shall 
marry  is  designated.  In  other  words,  allied  clans  gave  their  women 
in  exchange  mutually.  This  was  a  natural  arrangement,  both  because 
ibe  two  groups  were  neighbors  and  because  they  were  friendly,  and 
at  the  same  time  the  psychological  demand  for  newness  was  satis- 
fied. The  exchange  took  place  at  first  occasionally  and  not  system- 
atically   but  gradually,  and  when   the  habit  of  exchange  had 

been  established,  men  came  to  look  forward  to  the  exchange  and  to 
desire  to  secure  the  girl  at  the  earliest  possible  moment,  until  finally 
young  women  were  exchanged  at  puberty  and  virgins.  When  for  any 
j^  reason  there  is  established  in  a  group  a  tendency  toward  a  practice, 
then  the  tendency  is  likely  to  become  established  as  a  habit,  and  re- 
garded as  right,  binding,  and  inevitable:  it  is  moral,  and  its  contrary 
is  immoral.  When  we  consider  the  binding  natures  of  the  foo<l 
tab(X)S,  of  the  couvade,  and  of  the  regulation  that  a  man  shall  not 
speak  to  or  look  at  his  mother-in-law  or  sister,  we  can  understan«l 
how  the  habit  of  marrying  out  introduced  through  the  charm  of  im- 
familiarity.  becomes  a  binding  habit. "J 

As  stated  before,  self-preservation  and  racc-prcscrvation  arc  the 

•Crawley.  E— THK  MYSTIC  RDSE.  p  44« 
t  Thomas.  \V.  I— SKX  &  SoCIKTY.  pp.  57.  58 
I  Thomas.  W.  I.— SEX  &  SOCIETY,  pp   194.  196. 


18 

great  interests  of  primitive  man.  These  interests  are  reflected  in  his 
religion  which,  as  we  have  seen,  is  scarcely  differentiated  from  his 
science,  law,  and  art.  "Religion  in  its  first  form  is  a  reflection  of  the 
most  important  group  interests  through  social  symbols  and  cere- 
monials based  upon  the  activities  incident  to  such  interests.*  All 
habitual  actions  and  reactions — all  habitual  modes  of  action  which 
are  found  to  further  and  maintain  life  become  established  as  cus- 
toms which  make  up  this  religion.  The  most  characteristic  of  these 
customs  may  be  discussed  as  animism,  totemism,  and  taboo. 

ANIMISM  is  the  religion  and  philosophy  of  the  savage.  It  is  a 
belief  in  a  dual  or  double  world — a  belief  that  everything  in  the  world 
has  its  double  or  spirit.  "Back  of  every  material  existence  or  phen- 
omenal reality  the  savage  posits  an  immaterial  power,  a  spiritual  en- 
tity, a  "double"  which  controls  the  material  object,  explains  its  being 
and  its  resistance  to  the  will  of  man,  and  makes  it  an  abode  of  con- 
sciousness no  different  in  kind  from  the  consciousness  which  he  him- 
self possesses."!  Dream,  trance,  swoon,  somnambulism,  insanity, 
idiocy,  epilepsy,  death — all  these  are  evidence  to  him  that  the  body 
and  the  spirit  are  separate  things.     According  to  Tylor  "the  actual 

conception  of  the  personal  soul  or  spirit  among  the  lower  races 

may  be  defined  as  follows :  It  is  a  thin  unsubstantial  human  image,  in 
its  nature  a  sort  of  vapor,  film,  or  shadow ;  the  cause  of  life  and 

thought  in  the  individual  it  animates ; capable  of  leaving  the 

body  far  behind mostly  impalbable  and  invisible,  yet   also 

manifesting  physical  power continuing  to  exist  and  appear  to 

men  after  the  death  of  that  body ;  able  to  enter  into,  possess,  and  act 
in  the  bodies  of  other  men,  of  animals,  and  even  of  things.":]:  This 
does  not  mean  that  primitive  man  had  our  modern  conception  of 
"spirit"  or  "immaterial."  "What  the  primitive  man  is  conscious  of  is 
not  a  material  body,  and  an  immaterial  mind,  but  rather  an  acting, 
feeling,  thinking  body — the  unity  of  himself,  namely,  at  once  what 
we  should  call  material  and  conscious.  And  if  such  phenomena  as 
dreams  and  ghost-seeing  made  him  conceive  the  possibility  of  a  sep- 
aration of  himself  from  the  earthly  body,  yet the  inner  self, 

the  soul  or  ghost,  is  still  only  a  thinner  and  more  tenuous  body."§ 
To  all  things  he  attributes  this  double — all  things  are  interpreted  by 
him  in  this  way. 

This  dual  belief  gave  rise  to  a  system  of  propitiation  which  was 
the  beginning  of  worship.  Nature  was  peopled  by  unseen  powers 
bad  or  good ;  they  brought  good  or  evil  upon  man  and  so  he  had  to 

*  Ames,  E.  S.— THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  RELIGIOUS  EXPERIENCE,  p.  49. 
t  Monroe,  P.— TEXT  BOOK  IN  HISTORY  OF  EDUCATION,  p.  2. 
t  Tylor,  E.  B.— PRIMITIVE  CULTURE,  Vol.  I,  p.  429. 
§  Rogers,  A.  K.— HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY,  p.  5. 


19 

take  ihein  itUi)  consideration  in  all  \u>  atu<ni-,  iiiu>  j>i«HM.i.tti' m 
came  into  existence  as  a  practical  matter  with  the  savaj^c.  Because 
>f  this  dual  interpretation  of  life,  we  find  that  at  his  death  his  dog 
..\u\  horse  and  wife  are  killed  or  burned  with  him  so  that  their 
loubles  might  serve  his  in  the  other  world — and  for  the  same  reasons 
his  weapons  are  buried  or  burned  with  him. 

This  animistic  view  of  tilings  "is  manife--ii\  im.-  nuuoinc  .iml  de- 
velopment of  that  earliest  analogical  reasoning,  which  concludes 
external  objects  to  be  animated  with  a  life  essentially  similar  to  our 
own.'**  "Spiritual  l)cings  are  modeled  by  man  on  his  primary  concep- 
tion of  his  own  human  v^oul.  and their  purpose  is  to  explain 

nature  on  the  primitive  childlike  theory  that  it  is  truly  and  through- 
out 'animated  Xaturc.'  "f  This  is  Tylor's  interpretation  of  Animism 
and  it  is  very  generally  accepted. 

It  is  suggestive,  however,  to  note  the  view  of  Professor  Ames. 
who  says:  "Instead  of  primitive  man  discovering  his  own  soul  within 
him  and  then  attributing  such  a  soul  to  all  other  things,  he  is  ind«jlent 
and  inattentive;  or  he  is  absorbed  in  an  intense  activity,  all  parts  of 
which  fuse  and  blend  except  in  moments  of  unusual,  surprising  ex- 
j)eriences  when  a  conflict  springs  up  between  liis  accustomed  ground 

of  action  and  some  feature  of  his  environment There  is.  then, 

no  suftlcient  ground  for  believing  that  primitive  people  make  any 
consistent  distinction  between  man  and  his  spirit  or  between  any 
other  object  and  its  spirit.  Dreams  and  trances  may  indeed  give  rise 
to  the  idea  of  a  double,  but  this  double  is  not  essentially  different 
from  the  original." So  that  interpreting  Spirits  "in  terms  of  at- 
tention, conception  and  habit a  spirit  is  an  object,  sensation  or 

image  which  strikes  the  attention  forcibly;  any  strange  thing,  any 
unwonted,  exaggerated  or  surprising  thing — s«nnething  which  strikes 
the  attention  forcibly,  interrupting  an  established  habit,  and  demand- 
ing the  creation  of  a  new  conce|)tion."t 

It  seems  to  me  that  no  better  explanation  of  the  origin  of  An- 
imism has  yet  been  given  than  the  one  of  Professor  Tylor.  Reason 
has  ever  been  the  distinguishing  characteristic  of  man  since  he  rose 
above  the  brute,  and  his  curiosity  and  reasoning  might  possibly  have 
led  to  animism — a  sort  of  reasoning  ami  interpretation  that  wc  ob- 
serve at  all  times  in  the  case  of  children  an<l  the  ignorant. 

TOT  KM  ISM  is  the  name  applied  to  the  belief  held  by  primitive 
man  that  the  clan  is  descended  from  a  certain  object,  animate  or  in- 
animate, more  especially  a  beast  or  plant.    "There  is  no  record  of  a 

•Frazcr.  J    G— ANIMISM  IK  "FVCYCLOPEDIA  BRITANNICA." 
t  Tylor.  K.  B— rRIMITI\  Vol.  II,  p   184 

t.\me5.  F.   S— THK  I'SYi  F  RKLIGIOfS  EXPERIENXF..  pp 

99.  I(M.  106.  107. 


20 

stage  in  human  society  in  which  each  community  of  men  did  not 
claim  kindred  and  alliance  with  some  group  or  species  of  the  living 
powers  of  nature."* 

"Thus  the  Turtle  clan  of  the  Iroquois  are  descended  from  a  fat 
turtle,  which,  burdened  by  the  weight  of  its  shell  in  walking,  con- 
trived by  great  exertions  to  throw  it  off,  and  thereafter  gradually 
developed  into  a  man.     The  Bear  and  Wolf  clans  of  the  Iroquois  are 

descended  from  bears  and  wolves  respectively The  Crane  clan 

of  the  Ojibways  are  descended  from  a  pair  of  cranes,  which  after  long 
wanderings  settled  on  the  rapids  at  the  outlet  of  Lake  Superior, 
where  they  were  transformed  by  the  great  Spirit  into  a  man  and 

woman." Sometimes  "a  human  ancestress  is  said  to  have  given 

birth  to  an  animal  of  the  totem  species one  woman  brought 

forth  a  calf,  others  a  crocodile,  hippopotamus,  monkey,  boa,  and  wild 

pig-"t 

The  savage  regarded  his  totem — which  was  usually  a  beast,  bird, 
or  fish,  though  sometimes  a  tree  plant — with  superstitious  respect, 
expecting  the  totem  to  protect  him,  and  in  turn  showing  his  regard 
by  not  killing  it,  if  it  be  an  animal,  and  not  cutting  or  gathering  it 
if  it  be  a  plant.  The  totem  is  not  an  isolated  individual,  but  a  class  of 
animals  or  plants — generally  a  species.  "Each  local  group  reveals 
the  fact  that  it  is  composed  largely,  but  not  entirely,  of  individuals 
who  describe  themselves  by  the  name  of  some  one  animal  or  plant. 
Thus  there  will  be  one  area  which  belongs  to  a  group  of  men  who  call 
themselves  Kangaroo  men,  another  belonging  to  emu  men,  another  to 
Hakea  flower  men,  and  so  on,  almost  every  animal  and  plant  which 
is  found  in  the  country  having  its  representative  amongst  the  human 
inhabitants."^ 

"The  clan  totem  is  reverenced  by  a  body  of  men  and  women  who 
call  themselves  by  the  name  of  the  totem,  believe  themselves  to  be 
of  one  blood,  descendants  of  a  common  ancestor,  and  all  bound  to- 
gether by  common  obligations  to  each  other  and  by  a  common  faith 
in  the  totem.  Totemism  is  thus  both  a  religious  and  a  social  sys- 
tem. In  its  religious  aspect  it  consists  of  the  relations  of  mutual  re- 
spect and  protection  between  man  and  his  totem ;  in  its  social  aspect 
it  consists  of  the  relations  of  the  clansmen  to  each  other  and  to  men 
of  other  clans.  In  the  later  history  of  totemism  these  two  sides,  the 
religious  and  the  social,  tend  to  part  company ;  the  social  system 
sometimes  revives  the  religious ;  and,  on  the  other  hand,  religion 
sometimes  bears  traces  of  totemism  in  countries  where  the  social 
system  based  on  totemism  has  disappeared. "§ 

*  Smith,  W.  R.— THE  RELIGION  OF  THE  SEMITES,  p.  137. 
t  Frazer,  J.  G.— TOTEMISM  &  EXOGAMY,  pp.  5,  7,  8. 

t  Spencer,    B.   and   Gillen,    F.   J.— NATIVE   TRIBES    OF   CENTRAL   AUS- 
TRALIA, p.  9. 
§  Frazer,  J.  G.— TOTEMISM  IN  "ENCYCLOPEDIA  BRITANNICA." 


21 

The  savage  was  in  the  habu  ••!  >iu)win)j;  liis  close  rclaiixn  in  the 
totem  hy  tlressiii^  in  the  skin  of  the  totem  animal,  nnttilatin{{  his 
body  so  as  to  resemble  it  an»l  representing  it  on  his  body  by  paint. 
tatou  iir  t)ther\vise.*  lie  also  used  it  as  a  mark  to  aftlx  to  treaties  or 
other  documents,  and  paintetl  it  on  his  hut.  weapon  and  canoe.  All 
members  of  a  totem  clan  regard  each  other  as  kinsmen  and  are  in  duty 
bound  to  help  and  protect  one  another. 

Sometimes  in  addition  to  the  clan  totems,  there  are  sex  totems, 
separate  totems  for  the  man  and  others  for  the  woman.  Sometimes, 
too.  there  are  found  intli\  idual  tt)tems  rci^arded  by  individuals  as 
related   to  themselves  and   the  relati(Miship  enilin^   with   themselves. 

No  satisfactory  explanation  has  as  yet  been  j^iven  of  the  origin 
of  totemism.  Spencer  explains  it  as  a  "misinterpretation  oi  nick- 
names."! He  says  that  early  man  named  himself  after  plants  and 
animals,  and  then  confusing  these  with  his  ancestors  of  the  same 
name,  began  to  worship  them  as  he  already  worshipped  his  ancestors. 
Lubbock  also  believes  that  totemism  arose  from  the  hai)it  of  naming 
people  after  animals. 

I'ra/.cr  at  one  time  believed  that  "the  general  explanation  of 
Totemism  to  which  tiie  Inticiiiuma  ceremonies  seem  to  point  is  that  it 
is  primarily  an  organized  and  co-operative  system  of  magic  designed 
to  secure  for  the  members  of  the  community,  on  the  one  hand,  a  plen- 
tiful supplv  of  all  the  commodities  of  which  they  stand  in  need,  and, 
on  the  other  hand,  immunity  from  all  the  perils  and  dangers  to  which 
man  is  exposed  in  his  struggle  with  nature.  \'iewed  in  this  ligiit. 
Totemism  is  a  thoroughly  practical  system  designed  to  meet  the 
everyday  wants  of  the  ordinary  man. "J  But  now  Frazer  thinks  that 
"the  Central  Australian  beliefs  as  to  conception  are  but  one  remove 
from  absolutely  i)rimitive  totemism.  which,  on  my  theory,  ought  to 
consist  in  nothing  more  or  less  than  in  a  belief  that  women  are  im- 
pregnated without  the  help  of  men  by  something  which  enters  their 
womb  at  the  moment  when  they  first  feel  it  quicken,  for  such  a  belief 
would  perfectly  explain  the  essence  of  totemism.  that  is.  tlic  identi- 
fication of  groups  of  people  with  groups  of  things. "§ 

The  theory  of  G.  A.  W'ilken,  the  Dutch  scholar,  is  that  totemism 
is  based  on  the  belief  in  the  reincarnation  of  the  dead  in  the  form  of 
animals — that  transmigration  of  souls  forms  a  connecting  link  be- 
tween totemism  and  the  worship  of  the  dead. 

.•\   few  lines  from   Professor   Dewey  also  ;;i\e   i i   i<»r   ii»"Ught. 

.\n  explanation  of  totemism   is  radically  defective  which  does  not 

•  Trazcr.  J    G— TOTKMISM  &  KXOG,\MY.  Vol.  I.  p.  25. 

t  Spencer.  H— THK  I'KINCIPLKS  OF  SnCIOLOGY.  Vol.  I.  p.  367. 

t  Frazer.  J.  G.— TOT  KM  ISM  &  KXOG.VMY.  Vol.  I.  p.  116. 

§  Frazer.  J.  G.— TOTKMISM  &  KXOGAMY.  Vol.  IV,  pp.  58.  59. 


22 

make  much  of  the  implication  of  tribe  and  animal  in  the  same  emo- 
tional situation Hunter  and  hunted are,  as  a  matter  of 

fact,  co-partners  in  the  life  of  the  group.    Why,  then,  should  they  not 
be  represented  as  of  close  kin?"* 

Many  attribute  the  origin  of  totemism  to  the  worship  of  the  plant 
or  animal  originally  eaten  and  regarded  as  particularly  necessary  to 
the  clan's  existence.  This  seems  to  be  the  view  of  Spencer  and  Gillen : 
"We  find  among  these  tribes  (the  Arunta)  no  restriction  according 
to  which  a  man  is  forbidden  to  eat  his  totem,  as  is  stated  to  be  the 
case  amongst  certain  other  Australian  tribes.  On  the  other  hand, 
though  he  may  only  under  ordinary  circumstances  eat  very  sparingly 
of  it,  there  are  certain  special  occasions  on  which  he  is,  we  may  say, 
obliged  by  custom  to  eat  a  small  portion  of  it  or  otherwise  the  supply 
would  fail At  some  earlier  time  it  would  appear  as  if  the  mem- 
bers of  a  totem  had  a  right  to  feed  upon  the  totemic  animal  or  plant 
as  if  this  were  indeed  a  functional  necessity. "f 

Professor  Ames  seems  to  voice  the  same  opinion,  explaining  it 
very  clearly,  as  follows:  "Since  food  was  a  most  insistent  and  domi- 
nant need  of  man  he  would  be  particularly  interested  in  whatever 
afforded  food.  On  this  account  the  plant  or  animal  or  lish  wdiich 
satisfied  hunger  would  fix  attention  and  become  an  object  of  intense 
interest Precisely  this  fixing  of  attention,  heightening  of  emo- 
tion, and  recurrent  stimulation  make  things  sacred  or  taboo The 

taboos  against  eating  the  totem  probably  arose  when  it  became  scarce 
or  when  the  habit  of  regarding  the  totem  as  sacred  developed  the  re- 
striction of  its  use  to  occasional  ceremonial  functions.  The  growth  of 
the  tendency  to  reserve  the  totem  for  ceremonial  feasts,  and  then  to 
partake  of  it  sparingly,  accords  with  the  well-known  characteristic 
of  habitual  activities  to  develop  to  extremes,  and  even  to  interfere 
with  their  original  efifects.  In  this  way  the  very  awe  and  regard  at- 
tached to  an  article  of  food  because  of  its  life-giving  power  might 
naturally  enough  tend  to  remove  it  from  common  use,  when  other 
food  was  at  hand.  This  would  explain  the  fact  that  often  a  clan 
will  not  eat  its  own  totem,  though  other  clans  are  free  to  eat  it."| 

TABOO  is  another  one  of  the  features  that  occupied  a  large  place 
in  the  atmosphere  of  primitive  man.  It  was  essentially  a  religious 
observance  though  also  employed  for  civil  purposes.  It  was  a  sys- 
tem of  prohibitions  of  which  traces  may  be  discovered  in  most  parts 
of  the  world.  For  a  thing  to  be  taboo  meant  that  it  was  "sacred 
to  one's  self  or  forbidden  to  others."     For  primitive  man  all  things 

*  Dewey.  J.— INTERPRETATIONS  OF  SAVAGE  MIND.  p.  227. 

t  Spencer.  B.  and  Gillen,  F.  J.— NATIVE  TRIBES  OF  CENTRAL  AUS- 
TRALIA, pp.  167.  207  or  209. 

tAmes,  E.  S— THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  RELIGIOUS  EXPERIENCE,  pp. 
120,  119. 


23 


that  arc  strange,  or  abiioi nuii.  oi  reniarkabic,  arc  rcRarded  as  pos- 
sessing' peculiar  powers  and  properties  and  arc  therefore  labt>o,  being 
regarded  with  fear  and  awe.  It  may  aid  us  in  the  understanding  of  what 
taboo  is,  to  note  that  "the  orii^'inal  idea  behind  the  Maori  term  noa,  for 
instance,  which  means  common  as  opposed  to  tapu,  is  what  we  should 

call  normal  or  regular in  taboo  the  connotation  of  "not  to  be 

touched"  is  the  salient  pujiu  all  over  the  world Things  and  per- 
sons are  potentially  dangerous,  acts  and  functions  are  potentially 
liable  to  danger,  which  are  strange,  unfamiliar,  unusual,  abnormal,  in 
a  word,  more  or  less  unknown.  Man's  ignorance  is  the  occasion  of 
his  fears,  and  he  fears  anything  or  everything  which  he  does  not 
understand  Everyone  is  taboo  in  times  of  war,  at  the  arrival 
of  stranger-,  ai  the  planting  of  the  new  seed,  and  at  other  periodic 
performances Occasions  where  the  performance  of  bodily  func- 
tions is  in  question,  are  frequently  taboo,  and  practically  always  when 

the  functions  are  sexual  or  nutritive Even  emotional  states, 

such  as  pain,  anger,  fear  and  love,  which  are  apparently  so  abnormal, 
are  ascribed  to  supernatural  agencies  and  are  taboo  states ;  and  at 
last  the  remarkable  fact  becomes  clear,  that  in  primitive  thought,  most 
of  what  a  man  or  woman  does  is  actually,  and  all  is  potentially  taboo 

W  hen  we  take  our  attention  from  the  mysterious  force  of  taboo 

and  analyize  its  subject,  we  find  first  that  it  is  the  "spiritual"  danger 
which  makes  him  taboo  and  dangerous  to  others,  as  soon  as  it  de- 
scends upon  him  and  fills  him  with  virus  or  electric  force."* 

If  this  system  of  prohibition  was  to  grow  up  at  all,  it  was  natural 
that  it  should  grow  up  and  center  about  those  activities  which  were 
of  the  greatest  importance  to  the  group ;  and  so  we  find  taboo  center- 
ing about  birth,  initiation,  death,  sex,  food,  strangers,  chiefs,  war. 
"A  secondary  development  of  taboo  also  follows  the  law  of  habit, 
and    the   objects    thus    involved    may   be    taken    as    becoming    taboo 

through  association  with  the  main  factors  in  the  life  activities." 

Not  only  the  king,  but  "what  he  touches,  .sees,  mentions,  points  at 
and  even  what  he  mentally  refers  to,  becomes  taboo."t 

In  s(»mc  j)laces,  priests  only  could  impose  the  tab(X»,  but  else- 
where kings  and  chiefs  and  even  ordinary  individuals  exercised  the 
power.  A  taboo  might  be  general,  as  when  applied  to  a  class;  or  par- 
ticular as  when  applied  to  one  or  more  individuals  of  a  class  It 
might  be  permanent  or  temporary.  Idols,  temples,  perstins  and  prop- 
erty of  royal  persons,  chiefs  and  priests  were  taboo.  In  some  places 
even   the  namc^  of  chiefs  and   kings  were  taluxi  and  could  not  be 

•  Crawley,  h  —  I  III,  .M  ^  M  k    i\<  im..  pp   Ji,  79.  21.  30.  20. 
t.Xmcs.  K.  S— THK  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  RELIOIOLS  EXPERIENXE,  pp. 
68.69. 


24 

uttered.     A  chief  could  render  taboo  anything  he  took  a  fancy  to 
by  calling  it  by  name  of  part  of  his  person. 

Certain  foods  were  permanently  taboo — in  favor  of  or  for  use 
of  gods  and  men,  but  were  forbidden  to  women.  Thus  in  Hawaii 
the  flesh  of  hogs,  fowls,  turtle,  and  several  kinds  of  fish,  cocoa-nuts 
and  nearly  everything  offered  in  sacrifice  were  reserved  for  gods 
and  men,  and  could  not,  except  in  special  cases,  be  eaten  by  women. 
Sometimes  certain  fruits,  animals  and  flesh  were  taboo  for  months 
from  both  men  and  women.  Sometimes  houses  were  tabooed  against 
water.  If  an  island  or  district  was  tabooed  no  person  or  canoe  might 
approach  it  while  the  taboo  lasted ;  if  a  path  was  tabooed  no  one  might 
walk  on  it. 

Certain  seasons  were  kept  taboo,  such  as  the  approach  of  a  great 
religious  ceremony,  the  time  of  preparation  for  war,  and  the  time 
of  sickness  of  chiefs.  The  time  during  which  they  lasted  varied  from 
years  to  months  or  days.  During  these  periods  various  ordinary 
activities  were  to  be  abstained  from. 

A  taboo  was  either  common  or  strict.  During  a  common  taboo 
the  men  were  only  required  to  abstain  from  their  ordinary  occupa- 
tions and  to  attend  to  morning  and  evening  prayers.  But  during  a 
strict  taboo  every  fire  and  light  on  the  island  or  in  the  district  was 
extinguished;  no  canoe  was  launched;  no  person  bathed;  no  one,  ex- 
cept those  who  had  to  attend  at  the  temple,  was  allowed  to  be  seen 
out  of  doors;  "no  dog  might  bark,  no  pig  grunt,  no  cock  crow.  Hence 
at  these  seasons  they  tied  up  the  mouths  of  dogs  and  pigs,  and  put 
fowls  under  a  calabash  or  bandaged  their  eyes." 

The  taboo  was  imposed  either  by  proclamation  or  by  fixing  cer- 
tain marks  on  the  places  or  things  tabooed.  The  penalty  for  viola- 
tion of  the  taboo  was  either  religious  or  civil.  The  religious  penalty, 
inflicted  by  the  offended  spirits,  generally  took  the  form  of  a  disease. 
Persons  violating  taboo  were  supposed  to  be  attacked  by  sickness 
and  misfortune.  "The  infraction  of  the  savage  taboo  generally,  unlike 
that  of  the  decalogue,  carries  its  own  punishment.  Forbidden  food 
is  poison,  tabooed  land  is  dangerous  to  tread  upon,  to  handle  tabooed 
property  may  mean  death;  nobody  knows  what  awful  cosmic  catas- 
trophe might  occur  if  a  tabooed  woman  saw  the  sun ;  many  words  and 
names  are  taboo,  and  no  luck  will  come  of  using  them."*  Cases  are 
on  record  in  which  persons  who  had  unwittingly  broken  a  taboo  ac- 
tually died  of  terror  on  discovering  their  error.  However,  in  cases 
of  involuntary  trangression,  chiefs  and  priests  could  perform  certain 
mystical  ceremonies  which  prevented  this  penalty  from  taking  efifect. 

*  Lang,  A.— MAGIC  AND  RELIGION,  p.  257. 


25 

In  i.ut  mere  were  various  ecretnoiiics  by  which  a  taboo  could  be 
removed  or  overcome.  When  tal)iM)S  had  been  broken  wc  have 
sacrifices — also  when  women  returned  to  camp  after  child-birth,  when 
warriors  and  travellers  returned  home,  when  the  sick  regained  health, 
when  mourners  returned  from  burial  of  the  dead — probably  because  in 
each  of  these  cases  they  have  come  in  contact  with  things  or  beings 
or  spirits  that  are  dangerous  and  which  are  for  that  reason  taboo. 
One  of  the  commonest  methods  of  overcominj^  taboo  is  by  the  use  of 
water  (purification).  Not  because  it  cleanses  or  because  of  its  hy- 
gienic power,  but  because  it  is  full  of  magical  p<,\ver— it  is  sacred, 
mysterious,  strange.  Similarly  may  be  explained  the  u-r  of  (.t.- 
smoke  and  incense. 

The  civil  penalty  for  breaking  the  taboo  varied  in  seventy.  In 
some  places  there  were  orticers  appointed  by  the  chiefs  to  see  that 
the  taboo  was  observed,  and  every  breach  of  it  was  punished  with 
death  unless  the  offender  had  powerful  friends.  In  some  places  the 
punishment  was  milder — the  delinquent  being  robbed  and  his  gar- 
dens despoiled.  "In  New  Zealand  the  judicial  roljbery  was  reduced 
to  a  system.  Xo  sooner  was  it  known  that  a  man  had  broken  a  taboo 
than  all  his  friends  and  acquaintances  swarmed  down  on  him  and 
carried  off  whatever  they  could  lay  hands  on.  I'ikUt  thi^  >^\st(•m 
property  circulated  with  great  rapidity."* 

Persons  dangerously  ill  were  taboo  and  were  removed  from  their 
houses  to  sheds  in  the  bush  ;  if  they  remained  in  the  house  and  died 
there  the  house  was  tabooed  and  deserted.  Mothers  after  child-birth 
were  taboo,  and  so  were  their  new-born  children.  Women  before 
marriage  could  cohabit  with  their  lovers;  but  after  marriage  they 
were  strictly  tabooed  to  their  husbands  and  from  everyone  else.  Bur- 
ial grounds  and  those  who  had  come  in  contact  with  the  dead  were 
taboo,  and  a  canoe  which  had  carried  a  corpse  was  never  afterward 

used  but  was  drawn  on  shore  and  painted  with  the  •  ■' "lor — red; 

in  some  places  the  taboo  color  was  white. 

Besides  the  taboos  already  described  there  were  others  which 
anyone  couM  impose.  For  instance,  in  New  Zealand  if  a  man  wished 
to  preserve  his  house,  garden  or  anything  else,  he  made  it  taboo; 
similarly,  he  could  appropriate  a  forest  tree  or  a  piece  of  drift  timber. 
There  was  also  the  village  taboo  which  was  applied,  for  instance,  in 
making  taboo  in  the  autumn  the  sweet-potato  fields  belonging  to  the 
village  until  the  crop  was  gathered,  so  that  no  stranger  could  ap- 
proach them.  Similar  taboos  were  laid  on  woods  during  the  hunting 
season,  and  on  rivers  during  the  fishing  sca.son. 

•TABOO:  'ENCYCLOPEDIA  BRITANNICA." 


26 

It  seems  that  some  taboos  rendered  persons  or  things  sacred  or 
holy,  while  others  rendered  them  unclean  or  accursed.  But  on  closer 
study  we  find  that  such  a  distinction  was  a  later  development :  that 
the  rules  to  be  observed  were  originally  identical  in  what  seems  two 
different  kinds  of  taboo :  that  in  some  cases  the  ideas  of  sacredness 
and  uncleanness  were  indistinguishable.  "Alongside  of  taboos  that 
exactly  correspond  to  rules  of  holiness,  protecting  the  inviolability 
of  idols  and  sanctuaries,  priests  and  chiefs,  and  generally  of  all  per- 
sons and  things  pertaining  to  the  gods  and  their  worship,  we  find 
another  kind  of  taboo  which  in  the  Semitic  field  has  its  parallel  in 
rules  and  uncleanness.  Women  after  child-birth,  men  who  have 
touched  a  dead  body  and  so  forth,  are  temporarily  taboo  and  separated 
from  human  society,  just  as  the  same  persons  are  unclean  in  Semitic 
religions.  In  these  cases  the  person  under  taboo  is  not  regarded  as 
holy,  for  he  is  separated  from  approach  to  the  sanctuary  as  well  as 
from  contact  with  men ;  but  his  act  or  condition  is  somewhat  asso- 
ciated with  supernatural  dangers,  arising,  according  to  the  common 
savage  explanation,  from  the  presence  of  formidable  spirits  which 
are  shunned  like  an  infectious  disease.  In  most  savage  societies  no 
sharp  line  seems  to  be  drawn  between  the  two  kinds  of  taboo  just 
indicated,  and  even  in  more  advanced  nations  the  notions  of  holiness 
and  uncleanness  often  touch.  Among  the  Syrians,  for  example, 
swine's  flesh  was  taboo,  but  it  was  an  open  question  whether  this 
was  because  the  animal  was  holy  or  because  it  was  unclean."*  "The 
opposition  of  sacred  and  accursed,  clean  and  unclean,  which  plays  so 
important  a  part  in  the  later  history  of  religion,  did  in  fact  arise  by 
differentiation  from  the  single  root  idea  of  taboo,  which  includes  and 
reconciles  them  both  and  by  reference  to  which  alone  their  history 
and  mental  relation  are  intelligible. "f 

Some  have  held  that  taboos  are  artificial  contrivances  made  by 
priests  and  chiefs  in  their  interests.  "The  earlier  students  of  the  cus- 
tom regarded  it  as  an  artificial  invention,  a  piece  of  statecraft,  cun- 
ningly devised  in  the  interests  of  the  nobility  and  the  priests.  This 
view  is,  however,  now  generally  abandoned"  because  taboo  "is  most 
at  home  in  communities  which  have  no  state  organization,  and 
flourishes  where  there  are  no  priests  and  no  priesthood.  Above  all 
the  belief  is  not  artificial  and  imposed,  but  spontaneous  and  natural. "| 

Lang's  opinion  is  that  the  savage  "prohibited  just  such  things  as 
his  philosophy,  and  what  he  believed  to  be  his  experience,  showed 

him  to  be  dangerous  for  obscure  reasons These  taboos  are 

sanctioned  by  the  tribal  counsellors  as  the  results  of  experience,  not 

*  Smith,  W.  R.— THE  RELIGION  OF  THE  SEMITES,  pp.  152.  153. 
t  TABOO:  "ENCYCLOPEDIA  BRITANNICA." 

tjevons.   F.   B.— INTRODUCTION   TO  THE   HISTORY   OF   RELIGION, 
p.  82. 


ihcir  own  pcrh.ip-^,   Imi   liuii  oi   ihc  Alkiia   Buma.  or  clairvovam,  <>: 

■■^cll^ilivc."   or   ■■niciiiuni,"   or    liabitually    hallucinated    pcr.son 

Taboo,  then,  is  not  imposed  irrationally,  hut  for  a  good  reason,  as 
savaj^e  reasoninj^  y^oc».  and  in  accordance  with  what  is  believed  to 
be  experience,  and.  by  dint  of  suj^'gestion.  really  does  become  experi- 
ence"* Jevons'  view  is  that  taboo  "cannot  have  been  derived  from 
experience.  It  is  prior  to  and  even  contradictory  of  experience.  In 
fine,  it  is  an  inherent  tendency  of  the  niind."t  Frazer's  explanation 
is  that  "The  original  character  of  the  taboo  must  be  looked  for  not  in 
its  civil  but  in  its  rclii,Mous  element.  It  was  not  the  creation  of  a 
legislat»»r  but  ilie  gradual  outgrt»wth  of  animistic  beliefs,  to  which 
the  ambition  and  avarice  of  chiefs  and  priests  afterward  gave  an 
artificial  extension. "J  Crawley's  theory  is  that  "Fear  is  the  main 
cause  of  the  precautions  of  taboo.     The  conception  of  danger,  neither 

material  nor  spiritual,  but  botli is  the  chief  characteristic  of 

early  religious  thought  and  practice,  and  is  due  to  the  unscientific 

character  of  early  speculation." "This  primitive  conception  of 

danger  leads  to  precautions,  religious  or  superstitious,  and  appears  in 
ritual  and  in  the  imposition  of  taboo.  This  tendency  arising  from 
subjective  conceptions  as  to  the  danger  of  acts  and  things  unfamiliar, 
out  of  the  routine,  or  not  understood,  grows  out  of  man's  egotistic  sen- 
sibility, that  animal  form  of  the  instinct  of  self-preservation  and  the 
will  to  live,  which  causes  the  individual  to  insulate  liimself  from 
ix3tential  danger."§ 

Professor  Ames  in  criticising  the  explanations  <>i  Crawley.  Jevons 
and  Frazer,  says:  "A  psychology  which  starts  with  the  search  for  the 
underlying  ideas  of  social  customs  and  taboos  is  apt  to  fail  of  results 
for  the  reason  that  these  customs  do  not  spring  from  ideas. 
They  arc  reactions  to  felt  needs  and  are  non-rational.  They 
develop  into  habitual  activities,  acquiring  stability  through  repetition 
and  erticiency.  and  gaining  the  powerful  sanctit>ns  natural  to  long- 
standing habits.  There  is  abundant  evidence  that  primitive  custtMns 
and  taboos  do  not  arise  from  ideas  or  from  systems  of  belief,  and 
modern  psychology  has  made  it  possible  to  account  for  such 

upon  other  and  far  more  convincing  gri)unds The  ri; 

savages  themselves  to  inquiries  concerning  their  customs  are  good 
evidence  that  their  conduct  does  not  issue  from  "ideas"  nor  depend 
uiH.n  "rea.M)ns."    They  simply  say  'it  is  our  custom.*  "|| 

The  best  explanation,  it  seems  to  mc,  is  that  given  in  the  follow- 
ing few  lines  by  Professor  Ames:   "It  is  the  nature  of  custom  to  de- 

•  LanK.  .\— MAGIC  AND  RELIGION,  p.  2ti2 

t  Jevons.  K.  B— INTRODUCTION  TO  THE  HISTORY  OF   RELIGION. 

tFr.?zcr^J   G— T.\HOO:  "ENCYCUOPEDIA  BRITANNICA" 

§Crawlcy.  E— THE  MYSTIC  ROSE.  pp.  65.  5.  6.  30. 

[l  \mcs  E  S— THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  RELIGIOUS  EXPERIENCE,  p.  54. 


28 

velop  and  accumulate  to  itself  authority  and  inviolability This 

furnishes  the  basis  for  a  psychological  explanation  of  taboo.     Taboo 

is  just  the  negative  side  of  custom.    They  are  correlative  terms 

The  customs  are  the  thou-shalts  and  the  taboos  the  thou-shalt-nots 
of  primitive  life."* 

Of  other  notable  features  that  developed  in  connection  with  the 
conceptions  of  animism,  totemism,  and  taboo  may  be  mentioned  cere- 
monial, myth,  sacrifice,  magic,  prayer,  mutilations  of  body,  canni- 
balism. 

The  origin  of  ceremonial  is  explained  as  due  partly  to  the  fact 
that  "in  moments  of  leisure,  the  successfully  thrilling  events  of  the 
chase  or  battle  are  often  re-enacted ceremonials  serve  to  re- 
instate the  emotional  experiences  of  the  real  events."f  Another  ex- 
planation is  that  social  activities  give  rise  to  group  consciousness, 
and  that  this  leads  to  group  ceremonial.  Robertson  Smith  ascribes 
the  origin  of  ceremonial  to  occasions  of  crisis  "when  the  tribal 
nerves  are  on  the  stretch."  The  ceremonials  imitate  the  usual  life 
activities.  One  of  the  purposes  of  the  ceremonies  is  to  overcome 
taboo  or  magic.  For  example,  Crawley's  explanation  of  marriage 
ceremonies^  is  that  they  are  employed  to  overcome  sexual  and  other 
taboos.  Ceremonial  gives  play  to  mimicry  and  mummery,  and 
through  dances  and  chants  serves  to  impress  and  work  up  emo- 
tion. The  occasions  which  are  usually  accompanied  by  ceremonial 
of  some  kind  are  chiefly  the  following :  birth,  initiation,  marriage ; 
hunting  and  fishing  seasons ;  death  and  burial ;  war. 

"The  identification  of  a  man  with  his  totem  appears  further  to 
have  been  the  object  of  various  ceremonies  observed  at  birth,  mar- 
riage, death,  and  other  occasions. "§ 

There  are  "certain  sacred  ceremonies  associated  with  the  totems, 
the  object  of  which  is  to  secure  the  increase  of  the  animal  or  plant 
which  gives  its  name  to  the  totem.  These  ceremonies  are  perhaps 
the  most  important  of  any,  and  it  does  not  seem  possible  to  discover 
where  and  how  they  arose.  The  natives  have  no  tradition  which  deals 
with  their  origin."|| 

Mythology  is  primitive  man's  science  and  philosophy,  says 
Frazer.  Spencer  thinks  myths  are  distorted  stories,  arising  from 
misunderstood  terms  that  have  survived  in  speech  after  their  original 
significance  was  lost.  Some  believe  that  myth  preceded  religion ; 
while  others,  as  Robertson  Smith,  say  that  mythology  was  no  essen- 
tial part  of  ancient  religion.     This  view  seems  the  most  acceptable. 

*Ames,  E.  S.— THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  RELIGIOUS  EXPERIENCE,  pp. 
62,  52. 

t  Ames,  E.  S.— THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  RELIGIOUS  EXPERIENCE,  p.  60. 

t  Crawley,  E.— THE  MYSTIC  ROSE,  p.  322. 

§  Frazer,  J.   G.— TOTEMISM   &  EXOGAMY,  p.  31. 

II  Spencer,  G.  and  Gillen,  F.  J.— NATIVE  TRIBES  OF  CENTRAL  AUS- 
TRALIA, p.  167. 


29 

Sacrifice,  maijic,  and  prayer  arc  imp<'riaiu  cicmctU"^  in  the  cere- 
monial. The  essence  of  sacrifice  is  iilentificalion  with  God — contact 
with  the  "spirits" — by  partakinjj  of  the  same  meal  with  the  Spirit,  and 
thus  estal)lishinj^  or  stren.uthcnin}^  a  sacred  rehitittn;  the  sava^jc  bc- 
lievinp  that  a  sacred  relation  is  established  between  him  ami  any 
being  with  whom  he  comes  in  contact.  The  idea  of  sacrifice  as  a  gift 
to  the  god  was  a  later  development.    "The  leading  idea  in  the  animal 

sacrifices was  not  that  of  a  gift  made  over  to  the  god.  but  an 

act  of  communion,  in  which   the  god  and  his  worshippers  unite  by 
partaking  together  of  the  flesh  and  !)I(K>d  of  a  sacred  victim."* 

Magic  is  the  practice  of  trying  to  influence  the  spirits,  go(jd  or 
evil,  by  ceremony — by  greater  magic.  The  greater  part  of  primitive 
man's  relation  is  little  else  than  magic. 

Prayer  is  at  first  a  sort  of  impulsive  expression  accompanying 
religious  action  or  ceremony,  the  things  said  being  absolutely  mean- 
ingless. Such  a  conception  is  not  strange  when  we  think  of  the 
various  modes  of  expression  given  play  to  by  sects  to-day  when 
under  strong  religious  emotion ;  at  religious  revivals,  for  example. 
Later,  prayer  assumes  a  magical  character;  and  only  very  much 
later  does  it  become  meditation  and  communion  with  God. 

As  to  mutilations  of  the  body,  Klyniannt  mentions  the  fol- 
lowing purposes  for  which  the  savage  practices  thcni :  (1)  To  beau- 
tify the  body— by  boring  of  holes  through  the  nf)sc:  flattening  of 
the  nose;  tearing  of  hair  in  certain  places  of  the  scalp.  (2)  In 
mourning  the  death  of  near  relatives — by  cutting  of  gashes  across 
the  body.  (3)  To  promote  skill  in  daily  occupation— by  cutting  off 
a  forefinger,  etc.  (4)  To  bring  about  the  realization  of  certain  wishes. 
(5)  To  acquire  supernatural  powers  through  the  assistance  of  the 
"Spirits."  (6)  To  initiate  youths  into  manhood — by  circumcision ; 
and  to  prepare  girls  for  marriage — by  dcfl-"  t"'"n  (7)  T.  >  punish 
and  brand  wrong-doers. 

These  mutilations  arc  differently  interpreted  by  different  author- 
ities. Many  of  them  are  explained  as  based  on  the  idea  of  primitive 
man  that  sacrificing  a  part  of  the  body  (tr  of  some  organ  saves  the 
rest.  Thus,  for  example,  is  explained  the  practice  of  circumcision. 
Some  of  the  mutilations  attributed  as  due  to  desire  to  beautify  the 
body,  are  by  others  attributed  to  diflferent  causes:  thus  the  wearing 
of  bones  in  holes  bored  in  the  nose  for  that  purpose  is  said  by  .some  to 
be  due  to  a  desire  to  have  constantly  about  the  body  an  amulet  or 
magical  object :  thus  too  is  tatooing  explainc<l  by  .some  as  originally 
a  magical   device   rather   than   as  ornament.     Some   mutilations   arc 

•  Smith.  \V    R  — THE  RKLIGION  OF  THK  SKMITKS.  p.  226 
t  i: lymann.    K-DII--    KINGKHORKNF^     '"  "    '-"">\IE    SUDAUSTRA- 
LIEN,  p    108 


30 

ascribed  to  desire  to  remove  a  part  of  a  taboo  organ  to  save  the  rest : 
this  is  also  given  as  an  exphmation  of  circumcision.  It  is,  however, 
widely  accepted  that  some  of  the  mutilations  are  for  purposes  of 
ornament. 

Cannibalism  is  usually  explained  as  originating  through  primitive 
man's  belief  that  by  eating  of  an  animal  or  person  he  would  get  the 
qualities  of  that  animal  or  person — a  conception  based  on  the  theory 
of  identification  by  contact,  previously  alluded  to.  "The  Namaquas 
abstain  from  eating  the  flesh  of  hares,  because  they  think  it  would 
make  them  faint-hearted  as  a  hare.  But  they  eat  the  flesh  of  the 
lion,  or  drink  the  blood  of  the  leopard  or  lion,   to  get  the  courage 

and  strength  of  the  beasts Among  the  Dyaks  of  Northwest 

Borneo  young  men  and  warriors  may  not  eat  venison,  because  it 
would  make  them  as  timid  as  deer;  but  the  women  and  very  old  men 

are  free  to  eat  it The  flesh  and  blood  of  men  are  commonly 

eaten  and  drunk  to  inspire  bravery,  wisdom,  or  other  qualities  for 
which  the  men  themselves  were  remarkable,  or  which  are  supposed 
to  have  their  special  seat  in  the  part  eaten."* 

Elymann,f  however,  questions  this  as  being  the  origin  of  canni- 
balism and  thinks  rather  that  cannibalism  originated  from  scarcity  of 
food,  in  which  view  he  seems  to  be  supported  by  Morgan,  who 
ascribes  to  the  discovery  of  farinaceous  foods  the  great  fact  of  the 
abolition  of  cannibalism. 

Whether  it  be  the  origin  of  cannibalism  or  not,  it  is  no  doubt 
true  that  "All  over  the  world  primitive  man  believes  that  by  absorbing 
the  flesh  and  blood  of  an  animal  he  acquires  the  qualities  of  the  crea- 
ture, and  so  far  identifies  himself  with  it."$ 

CHAPTER  III 

NATURE  OF  PRIMITIVE  EDUCATION. 

It  is  convenient  in  discussing  the  agencies  of  education  to  group 
them  as  home,  school,  vocation,  state  and  church.  These  institutions, 
highly  difi^erentiated  and  complex  as  they  are,  very  well  include  the 
various  activities  and  ideals  of  life.  These  same  institutions  we  may 
consider  in  our  discussion  of  primitive  education.  Professor  Home 
has  pointed  out  that  these  agencies  "are  due  to  traits  in  man  which 
are  found  also  in  simpler  form  in  the  lower  animals.  They  mate, 
build  homes,  teach  their  young  by  example,  form  social  communities, 
have   leaders   of   flocks   and   herds,   and   become    attached    to   higher 

*  Frazer,  J.  G.— THE  GOLDEN  BOUGH,  Vol.  II.  pp.  354,  355.  357. 
tElymann,    E.— DIE    EINGEBORENEN    DER    KOLONIE    SUDy^USTRA- 

LIEN,  p.  262. 
t  Frazer,  J.  G.— TOTEMISM  &  EXOGAMY,  p.  120. 


31 

beings  who  arc  i^nmi  ici  tiiiiii  ami  ui'imi  win'm  tiuv  <K-i)cn<i  ■  '  »ur 
(Ji>cussion  of  primitive  life  with  ils  orj^ani/aliun.  practices  and  l>c- 
liefs  should  lead  us  to  sec  that  these  agencies  were  present  there. 
Hut  thoc  institutions,  which  to  us  arc  so  difTcrentiated  were  one  to 
primitive  man. 

rhc  orj^anization.  such  as  it  was,  was  due  chiefly  to  economic 
causes.  The  aim  of  all  strivini^  was  existence  and  preservation,  and 
these  were  possible  only  in  j^roup  co-operation,  and  so  we  have  the 
rudimentary  state.  In  this  rudimentary  state  we  see  the  element 
of  economy  in  e\i>lution  showini;  itself  in  the  rc|)rcssion  and  limita- 
tion of  individuality  and  originality  in  order  to  produce  rapid  adap- 
tation to  tribal  organization.  As  a  result  the  savage  learns  only  what 
is  absolutely  necessary  fi>r  subsistence  and  preservation.  This  for- 
biilding  of  any  originality  may  li.i\c  been  a  result  also  r»f  ancotor- 
worship. 

We  have  seen  that  marriage  and  the  relations  between  the  sexes 
was  based  on  definite  rules;  so  that  we  may  say  that  the  home  was 
already  a  well-defined  institution,  giving  to  education,  then,  as  now, 
its  chief  contribution.  Here,  in  the  home,  chiefly  through  imitation, 
partly  through  the  correction  of  mistakes  involving  some  conscious 
instruction ;  and  partly  through  the  method  of  trial  and  error,  began 
tlie  learning  of  the  speech,  deportment,  and  method  of  performing 
the  life  activities  of  the  group.  This  education  is  supplemented  at 
adolescence  by  the  initiatory  ceremonies,  undertaken  by  the  com- 
munity and  affording  the  only  element  of  formal  instruction.  In 
the  home.  t«»o.  it  is  that  the  children,  then,  as  now.  begin  to  imitate 
in  play  the  occupations  of  their  elders  which  they  themselves  will 
.irry  on  seriously  in  later  years,  and  thus  their  games  and  play  serve 
:>  a  contributing  factor  in  their  education. 

Division    of    labor    was    clearly    marked    as    between    man    and 
woman ;  besides  that,  they  lived  in  separate  organizations,  and  so  we 
find  the  initiatory  ceremony  serving  the  purpose  of  freeing  the  b    \- 
from   their   m<Jthers'   organization   and    teaching   them    the   i>r.i.  • 
and  ideas  connected  with  the  group  activities. 

Religion  is  not  only  present,  but  in  fact  underlies  all  life,  for  it 
i>  the  expression  of  group  consciousness  in  connection  with  all  ac- 
tivity. All  of  the  savage's  activities  are  closely  connected  with  his 
religious  beliefs,  and  so  he  needs  to  know  not  only  how  to  do  certain 
things,  but  how  to  do  them  in  such  a  way  as  not  to  ofTemI  the  un«*ccn 
pfnvers.  In  this  connection  it  should  be  noted  that  whereas  we  fre- 
(juently  profit  by  discoveries  made  by  trial  and  experiment,  or  even 
by  accident,  the  savage  was  excluded  from  such  a  benefiting  from  cx- 

•  Hornc.  H    H  — THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  EDUCATION,  p.  S. 


32 

perience  on  account  of  his  fixed  customs  and  beliefs,  particularly  his 
taboos.  "Even  if  accidentally  and  unintentionally  he  is  led  to  make 
such  an  experiment,  instead  of  profiting  by  the  experience,  he  dies  of 
fright,  as  did  the  New  Zealand  slave  who  ate  his  master's  dinner;  or  if 
he  does  not  die,  he  is  tabooed,  excommunicated,  outlawed ;  and  his  fate 
in  either  case  strengthens  the  original  respect  for  taboo."* 

There  is  no  such  special  institution  as  a  school.  The  out-of-door 
living  and  occupations  of  primitive  man  make  it  necessary  to  do 
their  teaching,  such  as  it  is,  out-of-doors,  and — aside  from  some  of 
the  instruction  in  connection  with  initiation — by  actual  experience, 
^^avage  education  may  be  described,  then,  as  social  education  ;  since 
formal  education  can  arise  only  when  educational  heritage  crystal- 
lizes in  convenient  form,  easily  presented,  and  when  division  of  labor 
progresses  to  the  extent  that  teaching  may  become  the  business  of 
specialists.  Such  a  beginning  is  made  in  the  case  of  the  initiation 
ceremony,  society  here  taking  upon  itself  the  work  of  education ; 
but  even  this  can  hardly  be  called  an  element  of  conscious  evolution, 
for  it  is  determined  by  custom  and  tradition  rather  than  by  a  con- 
scious aim  to  weld  the  child  into  the  tribal  community ;  the  ceremony 
serves,  however,  to  perform  this  function. 

So  that  we  may  say,  with  Professor  Davidson,  that  "savage  edu- 
cation was  not  conscious  evolution.  But  savage  education  shows, 
in  their  primitive  form,  the  two  departments  of  all  education — edu- 
cation with  reference  to  the  seen,  and  education  with  reference  to  the 
unseen,  or.  roughly  speaking,  practical  education  and  theoretical  edu- 
cation."f  This  practical  education  of  the  savage  gave  him  the  train- 
ing in  the  various  activities  connected  with  obtaining  the  necessaries 
of  life  for  himself  and  his  family — connected  with  obtaining  food, 
clothing  and  shelter.  He  learned  to  use  wood,  stone,  clay,  bone,  wool, 
fibre  and  hides ;  to  sew,  cook,  weave,  build  huts,  hunt,  fish  and  fight. 
His  theoretical  education  taught  him  how  to  do  these  things  in  a 
manner  acceptable  to  his  unseen  spirits  of  the  universe.  It  gave  him 
the  primitive  explanations  of  things — his  religion,  philosophy  and 
science. 

Past  or  future  gave  but  little  worry  to  the  savage ;  he  gave  them 
but  little  thought ;  but  he  was  highly  interested  in  the  present,  and 
^education  fulfilled  its  purpose  when  it  adjusted  him  to  that  present. 
This  it  did,  as  we  have  seen  by  forcing  on  him  the  strict  imitation  of 
the  life  of  those  of  his  group,  shaping  him  into  a  fixed  traditional 
mould. 

*Jevons,  F.  B.— INTRODUCTION  TO  HISTORY  OF  RELIGION,  p.  90. 
t  Davidson,  Th.— A  HISTORY  OF  EDUCATION,  p.  20. 


33 

CHAPTER  IV 

METHOD  OF  PRIMITIVE  EDUCATION 

On  the  practical  side  the  method  of  education  in  savage  life  is 
imitation.  There  is  no  conscious  process  of  instruction,  and  no  spc- 
vial  institution  or  school.  There  is  no  attempt  at  formal  explanation 
■r  interpretation.  The  mcth«»d  may  be  compared  to  that  pursuc<l 
hy  us  at  present,  with  the  child  at  h(Mne,  and  outside  of  the  school, 
when  not  t;ivin.ii  conscious  formal  instruction — the  child  observes,  it 
imitates,  it  does  what  its  elders  do  and  as  they  do.  Similarly  the  sav- 
as^e  child  learned  by  observation  and  imitation,  by  trying;  and  succced- 
inj;.  by  actual  contact  with  the  activities  of  life,  the  few  simple  arts  of 
its  elders — to  sew,  to  cook,  to  build  huts,  to  hunt,  to  fish,  to  fiKht. 

On  the  theoretical  side  the  only  formal  instruction  is  that  given 
by  the  shamans  or  elders,  to  the  adolescent  youth  who  are  taken  aside 
for  varying  periods,  to  be  instructed  in  the  secrets  of  their  people, 
before  their  atlmission  into  the  men's  organization  and  to  tribe  mem- 
bership. While  under  obligation  of  secrecy,  prohibited  from  speaking 
for  several  days,  and  after  undergoing  certain  mutilations  of  the  body, 
the  youth  comes  intt»  possession  of  the  wisdom  of  his  people.  "Primi- 
tive education  like  most  complex  modern  education,  is  but  the  initia- 
tion of  the  individual  itit<»  the  ways  of  society  through  the  acquisition 
of  its  organized  cultural  possession;  now  expanded  into  many  sub- 
jects, requiring  years  for  its  acquisition."* 

The  instruction  at  initiation  is  wholly  of  imitative  character,  for 
the  vt)Uth  accept  with<»ut  any  change  or  questioning  the  tradition > 
of  their  tribe  as  taught  by  those  performing  the  initiation  ceremonies. 
Custom  has  already  fixed  mode  of  action  and  interpretation  and  the 
duty  of  the  initiated  is  obedience  and  imitation.  "The  chief  ideas 
behind  the  cerenmnies  of  so-called  "initiation"  are  c<»ncerned  with 
the  going-out  of  childhood  and  the  entering  upon  the  state  of 
manhood  and  womanhood.  The  putting-away  of  the  old  life  of  child- 
hood and  sexlessness,  and  the  taking-up  of  responsibilities,  social  and 
sexual,  of  the  new,  and  also  the  education  imparted,  were  often  dra- 
matized amongst   early  peoj)les  by  "sympathetic"  processes 

This  kind  of  rehearsal  was  meant  to  insure  the  pn.per  performance 
of  the  duties  represented  in  the  mystery-play.  We  also  find  useful 
instruction  given  as  to  the  duties  of  manhood  and  womanhoo<l,  the 
sexual  relation  and  marriage:  girls  are  entru>te<l  with  such  feminine 
lore  as  the  women  possess,  while  the  boys  arc  entrusted  with  the  tribal 
history  and  secrets  by  the  old  men.  the  repositories  of  power,  and 
the  real  and  responsible  guardians  of  the  state."t 

•  Monroe.  P.— Text  Book  in  the  HISTORY  OF  EDUCATION,  p.  12. 
t  Crawley.  K— THE  MYSTIC  ROSE,  p.  294. 


34 

The  initiation  ceremony  is  an  important  event  in  the  Hfe  of  the 
primitive  boy.  It  is  the  means  of  entrance  into  manhood  and  into 
the  men's  organization ;  without  it  there  follow  loss  of  all  men's  priv- 
ileges and  ostracism  for  life.  Women,  children  and  the  uninitiated 
are  considered  as  one.  "They  are  'milksops'  and  'pariahs,'  the  de- 
spised of  men."  Successful  passing  of  the  hardships  incident  to  in- 
itiation gives  one  a  place  as  a  man  among  the  men.  Those  that  passed 
the  tests  probably  represented  the  survival  of  the  fittest — those  strong 
and  fitted  for  war  and  the  hard  struggles  of  primitive  life. 

Various  are  the  forms  and  the  methods  employed  for  this  ordeal ; 
each  tribe  possesses  its  distinctive  tests.  Some  portion  of  the  initia- 
tion ceremony  is  always  devoted  to  the  teaching  of  the  sacred  lore, 
the  customs  and  traditions  of  the  people.  This  is  essentially  the 
business  of  the  elders  and  it  is  entrusted  to  them  because  of  the  sanc- 
tity impressed  by  their  very  presence  and  appearance.  "Off  in  the 
field,  apart  from  the  curious,  an  appeal  is  made  to  the  oracle,  through 
the  medium  of  mummery.  The  very  mystery  of  the  process  tends 
to  its  solemnity.  An  invocation  is  always  made  to  the  gods  that  the 
ceremonies  may  be  pleasing  in  their  sight.  This  reacts  upon  the  youth 
in  that  it  gives  to  society  a  greater  hold  upon  him.  The  gods  them- 
selves will  conspire  with  man  to  give  vengeance  upon  him  in  the 
event  of  his  unfaithfulness  to  the  trust.  Here  religion  plays  its  part 
to  assist  social  welfare.  Individually,  reason  may  urge  to  violate  cus- 
tom, but  the  fear  of  the  wrath  of  the  gods,  is  the  force  to  hold  to 
fellowman." 

V  The  practice  of  public  initiation  among  primitive  man  may  be 
said  to  mark  the  beginning  of  education  as  a  conscious  process. 
Primitive  man  took  advantage  of  a  natural  transition — from  child- 
hood to  manhood — to  instruct  the  children  in  tribe  lore,  tradition,  and 
wisdom,  and  to  inspire  them  with  respect  for  the  old  men  and  for  the 
practices  of  the  tribe.  According  to  Professor  Hall's  account  of  in- 
itiation practices  it  seems  that  among  American  Aborigines  the  girl 
receives  most  attention,  while  in  Africa,  Australia  and  in  the  Eastern 
Islands  it  is  almost  altogether  bestowed  upon  the  boy.*  The  first 
great  event  is  arrival  at  maturity. 

Some  tribes  had  elaborate  ceremonies  of  initiating  girls  into 
maturity.  The  girl  would  be  kept  for  some  period  in  some  secluded 
place,  wear  peculiar  dress  as  mark  of  her  condition,  and  during  this 
period  of  isolation  be  busy  sewing  and  weaving  to  teach  her  industry 
and  patience.  She  would  have  to  go  through  various  ceremonies 
and  practices  of  self-denial  such  as  eating  particular  kind  of  food, 
fasting    and    praying.      "Reserve,    self-control,    weighing    of    conse- 

*  Hall,  C.  S.— ADOLESCENCE,  Vol.  II,  p.  233. 


quences  were  cnii)lia>i/.cii.  '  1  licii  mere  \v«)ul<l  be  a  comni.;  "iit 
fca>t  at  which  she  wt>uUl  l)e  imruiUiceil  to  ihe  youn^  men  of  the 
.'pposjte  phratry.  New  clothes  ami  Drnaments  wouhl  be  given  to  her. 
■'If  healthy  ami  industrious,  modest  and  reserveil,  spoke  slowly, 
quietly  and  deliberately,  and  especially  if  she  had  gaine<l  a  reputa- 
tion of  unusual  industry  and  skill,  suitors  abounded  and  she  was  soon 
married."*  Amoni,'  some  tribes  the  ceremony  was  simple:  there 
would  be  a  feast,  the  tzirl  aii])earini:  in  gala  dress  and  makini;  K'fts  to 
the  guests. 

in  the  East  the  ceremonies  with  the  boys  are  elaborate.  They  are 
taken  to  a  tabooed  spot  in  the  bush,  and.  after  undergoing  certain 
rites,  such  as  circumcision,  they  arc  instructed  in  the  customs,  laws. 
rites,  traditions  and  practices  of  the  tribe,  especially  those  connected 
with  the  totem  animal  or  plant  sacred  to  the  clan.  Advice  is  given 
on  the  conduct  of  life,  especially  conduct  toward  the  other  sex.  Tribal 
lulcs  and  customs  are  taught;  also  songs  and  dances  which  women 
and  the  uninitiated  are  not  allowed  to  know.  There  are  ceremonials. 
-hum  fights,  and  pantomimes.  The  purpose  of  some  of  the  cere- 
monies is  the  giving  of  strength  and  the  prevention  of  harm  and  mis- 
fortune; the  object  of  others  is  the  imparting  and  increasing  <jf 
ability  in  the  performance  of  the  group  activities.  Through  such  in- 
itiation practice  does  primitive  man  attempt  t(t  weld  the  youth  into 
the  group  among  which  they  live. 

Most  of  the  rites  call  for  a  great  deal  of  entlurance  of  pain  and 
^-elf-control.  A  very  general  practice  is  the  knocking  out  of  one  or 
more  teeth  of  the  initiate,  possibly  thus  to  save  the  rest.  Beatin-^'s 
are  given,  either  to  add  strength  to  the  candidate — according  to  the 
savage's  theory  of  identification  by  contact— or  perhaps  to  drive  fn>m 
the  body  dangerous  spirits.  If  the  youth  cannot  bear  the  tortures, 
certain  yells  indicate  that  he  is  unworthy  to  be  a  man.  and  he  i-^ 
handed  over  to  the  women  to  be  forever  classed  with  them  and  t<> 
do  the  work  assigned  to  them.  The  lessons,  orders,  and  prohibitions 
are  well  impressed,  for  by  hunger,  thirst,  secrecy,  etc.,  the  body  has 
been  put  on  the  rack  and  been  prepared  for  strong  suggestion.  When 
the  ceremonies  are  over  the  women  are  summoned  and  great  dances 
and  feasts  occur.  The  initiatetl  youth  are  now  removed  from  the 
female  «»rganization  and  are  thereafter  members  of  the  men's  group. 

Among  many  tribes  of  Australia,  Africa  and  the  Eastern  Islands. 
the  practice  of  circumcision  is  part  of  the  initiatory  exercises.  This 
is  one  of  the  most  widely  prevailing  of  all  ancient  rites,  and  is  gen- 
erally practiced  at  puberty. 

•  Hall.  G.  S.— ADOLESCENCE.  Vol   II.  p  234 


36 

Among  some  tribes  the  initiated  youth  is  simply  clothed  with 
man's  attire  in  some  ceremonial  fashion.  Among  some  of  the  Indian 
tribes  the  "medicine  dream"  in  which  the  youth  fasted,  prayed  and 
kept  watch  to  obtain  visions  of  his  future  guardian  spirit,  took  the 
place  of  other  rites — "undoubtedly  based  on  a  psychological  char- 
acteristic of  puberty,  that  desire  for  the  new  and  the  strange,  that  ro- 
mantic aspiration  after  ideals  and  guiding  stars,  which  is  part  of  the 
blossoming  of  love,  and  has  such  an  important  connection  with  re- 
ligion."* 

Our  knowledge  of  the  wisdom  and  lore  taught  in  the  various 
schemes  of  initiation  is  limited  because  of  the  difficulty  of  obtaining 
access  to  or  much  information  concerning  these  rites.  Great  pre- 
cautions are  taken  that  none  but  the  initiated  shall  penetrate  the  mys- 
teries of  what  is  taught.  Death  is  threatened  for  revealing  what 
is  seen  or  heard.  Many  ceremonies  are  according  to  a  fixed  ritual,  are 
symbolic,  and  the  meaning  is  often  no  longer  known  to  the  natives 
themselves. 

CHAPTER  V 

ESTIMATE  OF  PRIMITIVE  CIVILIZATION  AND 
EDUCATION 

In  the  estimate  of  primitive  civilization  and  education  it  should 
be  noted  that  "every  item  of  knowledge  gained  became  a  factor  in 
further  acquisition.  Consequently,  while  progress  was  slowest  in 
time  in  the  first  period,  and  most  rapid  in  the  last,  the  relative  amount 
may  have  been  greatest  in  the  first,  when  the  achievements  of  either 
period  are  considered  in  their  relation  to  the  sum."f 

In  this  period  began  the  germs  of  what  have  become  the  principal 
institutions  of  mankind :  Society,  Family,  Religion,  Government, 
Language,  Work,  Property,  House  Life.  The  Society  was  the  group, 
bound  by  ties  of  kin,  using  the  same  language,  believing  in  the  same 
religion,  following  the  same  customs,  and  having  the  same  level  of 
art  and  knowledge.  To  us,  all  these  institutions  are  differentiated 
and  highly  complex:  to  the  savage,  they  were  all  one.  One  con- 
trolling aim  was  present — this  was  subsistence — preservation. 

Government  was  beginning  to  perform  its  proper  function ;  we 
see  the  germ,  in  the  latter  part  of  the  period  of  savagery,  in  the  or- 
ganization in  gentes,  phratries,  and  tribes,  using  Morgan's  classifica- 
tion— or  in  classes  and  sub-classes,  using  the  classification  that  is 
more  generally  preferred.  The  early  laws  were  beginning  to  join  men 
into  groups,  and  impressing  upon  them  customs  that  led  to  the  mak- 

*  Crawley,  E.— THE  MYSTIC  ROSE,  p.  304. 
t  Morgan,  L  H.— ANCIENT  SOCIETY,  p.  37. 


37 

ing  of  natioii>.     The  orj^.uii/.iUDii  oi  the  ^roup  and  iis  imercsts  re- 
quired   limitation    and    rcj)rc>>ion    of    originality,    and    adaption    and 
conformity  to  tribe  usaj^e.     And  we  have  seen  how   well   this  was 
accomplished   by   the  sacrcdncss  attached   U)  all   custom.      ■' 
and  stability  can  be  had  only  throu}j;h  ct>-operation.  and  the 
of  fixed,  sacred  customs  produced  this  necessary  co-operation.    "But 
for  the  processes  which  weave  into  innumerable  men  certain  ground 
l)attcrns  of  ideas,  beliefs,  and   preferences,  j^rcat   societies  could   not 
endure.    No  communities  could  last  save  those  held  together  by  social 
I'lca>^urc  or  the  necessity  for  co-operation."* 
i^_^        l\cIii,'ion  entereil  into  every  hour  of  savage  life.     "Every  act  of 
'lis  lite  from   the  cradle  to  the  grave  has  a  religious  side.     At  first 
^ii^lit  it  seems  impossible  to  imaj^iiie  what  conceivable  functi«)n  such 
awful  religions  can  perform  in  the  economy  of  the  world.     But  one 
use  they  assuredly  had ;  they  fixed  the  yoke  of  custom  thoroughly  on 

mankind They  put  upon  a  fixed  law  a  sanction  so  fearful  that 

no  «»ne  could  dream  of  not  conforming  to  it."t  "Religion  in  primitive 
society  may  be  regarded  as  primarily  a  system  for  the  controlling  of 
I  lie  group  with  reference  to  the  ends  which  are  felt  most  acutely  by  the 

L^roup  as  a  group All  practices  designed  to  do  this  are  religious, 

whether  they  are  definite  forms  of  worship  or  not.  Among  these  wc 
should  class  the  complicated  initiation  ceremonies  of  many  peoples, 
tribal  organization,  involving  the  regulation  of  the  individual's  life 
in  the  most  minute  details,  his  naming,  his  eating,  his  hunting,  where 
he  may  go.  whom  he  may  marry,  and  his  conduct  toward  various 
members  of  the  tribe. "J  "There  was  no  such  thing  as  absolutely  irre- 
ligious man.  A  certain  amount  of  religion  was  required  of  every- 
body ;  for  the  due  performance  of  religious  acts  was  a  social  obliga- 
tion in  which  everyone  had  his  appointed  share."§ 

There  is  no  moral  element  present  either  in  the  savage's  religion 
r  in  his  religious  rites,  such  as  sacrifice  or  prayer.  Either  his 
ceremonial  has  a  practical  purpose,  intending  to  influence  the  spirits — 
or  it  is  symbolic  action  expressive  of  religious  emotion.  Savage  puri- 
fication, too,  has  nothing  to  do  with  our  notion  of  purification.  To 
the  savage  "purification  means  the  application  to  the  person  of  some 
medium  which  removes  a  taboo,  and  enables  the  person  purified  to 
mingle  freely  in  the  ordinary  life  of  his  fellows."||  The  ceremonies 
have    s<»mc   educational    value   since    they    promote   endurance,    self- 

•  kos5i.  K.  /\  — SOCI.AL  PSYCHOLOGY,  p.  3. 

t  BaRchot.  \V.— I'HYSICS  &  POLITICS,  w    'r.,  ?7 

JAmcs.   E.   S— PSYCHOLOGY   OF    ki 

73  (Quoted  from  Irving  King  "I^iflfer- 

ncss."  p.  39). 
§  Smith.  W.  R.— THE  RELIGION  OF  THE  SEMITES,  p  2^ 
Smith,  W.  R.— THE  RELIGION  OF  THE  SEMITES,  p  425. 


88 
control  and  obedience  to  the  old  men,  and  acquaint  the  initiates  with 
whatever  tribe  lore  there  is.  Beside  that,  they  impress  the  mode  of 
performing  the  most  important  life  activities.  "The  war-dance  and 
similar  sympathetic  processes  assist  the  real  result  by  imitating  it. 
These  practices  have  a  true  psychological  basis  and  subjective  use; 
they  resemble  "rehearsals";  by  previously  going  through  the  result 
man  insures  its  successful  issue,  just  as  one  runs  over  in  his  mind 
something  he  is  about  to  do.  In  the  Chippeway  war-dance  the  war- 
riors imitated  the  actions  of  surprising  the  enemy,  of  tomahawking, 
scalping,  and  drinking  the  blood  of  the  foe."*  Another  service  of 
ceremonial  is  the  stimulation  of  imagination  and  emotion,  tending  to 
a  realization  of  the  existence  of  something  beyond  the  mere  individual. 
It  serves  also  to  impress  the  occurence  of  important  events — a  service 
important  at  a  time  when  written  records  do  not  yet  exist.  The 
most  important  result  of  ceremonial  is  the  unifying  of  the  social 
life  of  the  group. 

A  study  of  primitive  man's  actions  and  motives  shows  that  he  was 
an  unmoral  rather  than  an  immoral  creature ;  morality  had  not  yet  de- 
veloped. The  only  misconduct  is  a  transgression  of  custom,  a  viola- 
tion of  taboo,  punishable  by  death  or  exclusion  from  the  tribe.  "In J 
the  matter  of  morality  their  code  differs  radically  from  ours,  but  itl 
cannot  be  denied  that  their  conduct  is  governed  by  it,  and  that  anyj 
known  breaches  are  dealt  with  both  surely  and  severely. "f  "All 
tribal  religions  preach  a  dualism  of  ethics,  one  for  the  members  of] 
the  tribe  who  are  bound  together  by  ties  of  kinship  and  by  union  to^ 
preserve  existence;  and  the  other,  for  the  rest  of  the  world.  To  the, 
former  are  due  aid,  kindness,  justice,  truth,  and  fair  dealing;  to  thei 
latter,  enmity,  hatred,  injury,  falsehood,  and  deceit.  The  latter  is 
just  as  much  a  duty  as  the  former,  and  is  just  as  positively  enjoined 
by  both  religion  and  tribal  law."$  "Now,  if  the  judgments  of  rude 
men  about  conduct  spring  from  faintly  stirring  instincts  of  right, 
from  a  dim  sense  of  the  good,  why  is  there  an  abrupt  change  at  the 
frontier  of  the  group?  If  in  these  standards  of  dealing  with  clans- 
men we  have  the  gropings  of  a  half-awake  conscience,  what  becomes 
of  this  conscience  when  the  stranger  appears?  But  if  they  develop 
very  naturally  by  a  process  of  unconscious  adaption  out  of  the  mental 
contacts  and  long  intercourse  of  associates,  it  is  the  most  natural 
thing  in  the  world  that  these  ethical  elements  should  have  a  short 
radius  of  operation. "§ 

Animistic   belief    shows    that    early    man    had    no    conception    of 

*  Crawley.  E.— THE  MYSTIC  ROSE,  p.  289. 

t  Spencer,    B.   and   Gillen,    F.   J.— NATIVE   TRIBES   OF   CENTRAL   AUS- 
TRALIA, p.  46. 
tBrinton,  D.  G.— THE  RELIGION  OF  PRIMITIVE  PEOPLES,  p.  228. 
§  Ross,  E.  A.— SOCIAL  CONTROL,  pp.  345,  346. 


39 

law  uiulcrlyinji  the  actions  of  nature.  He  believes  in  supernatural 
beings — generally  thought  of  in  his  own  image,  or  in  the  image  of 
animals — but  these  beings  arc  to  him  really  material  existences.  He 
has  not  learned  to  distinguish  between  imagination  and  reality,  and  so 
he  believes  in  the  material  reality  of  the  j)hantoms  and  spectres  and 
spirits  which  he  sees  in  sickness,  excitement,  dream  or  trance.  As  a  re- 
sult of  the  superstitit)us  nature  of  his  thought  we  find  that  magic  and 
ritual  are  such  very  important  elements — the  spirits  must  be  influenced 
and  controlled. 

The  family,  going  through  vari».ii^  i.^^v  ...  development, 
was  already  a  well-established  .social  and  educational  institution. 
Language,  building,  and  the  sense  of  property  were  in  rude  form,  but 
were  well  started  on  their  onward  march.  Similarly,  too,  with  the 
other  institutions  that  we  now  consider  the  very  foundations  of  our 
society ;  they  were  there,  but  in  their  very  beginning — in  a  very  rudi- 
mentary state.  Work  was  beginning  its  work  of  moulding  and  human- 
izing, and  was  satisfying  the  few  needs  of  the  time. 

The  savage  mode  of  living,  the  very  occupations,  made  it  neces- 
sary that  whatever  instruction  was  given  should  be  given  out  of  doors, 
by  actual  experience.  There  was  no  crystallized  formal  body  of 
knowletlge.  and  so  there  was  no  formal  instruction.  Besides,  division 
of  labor  had  not  yet  progressed  so  far  as  to  have  teaching  or  any  other 
occupation  become  the  business  of  specialists.  The  only  markctl  step 
in  advance  of  unconscious  social  education  by  imitation  is  where  we 
see  the  tribe  taking  upon  itself  the  business  of  education  in  the  initi- 
atory ceremonies.  "Dominated  as  it  is  on  every  hand  by  custom  and 
tradition,  the  education  of  the  primitive  man  is  so  prescribed  in  its 
minutest  detail  that  he  has  far  less  freedom  than  man  usually  possesses 
in  higher  stages  of  culture."*  Whatever  culture  he  has  is  not  reasoned, 
not  formulated,  not  rationalized — just  blind,  handed  down  tradition- 
ally. Not  being  born  with  the  finely  inherited  structure  which  is 
modern  man's  heritage,  and  because  his  life  was  what  it  was,  we  find 
the  savage  to  be  a  creature  of  impulse:  "they  unite  the  character  of 
childhoo«l  w  ith  the  passions  and  strength  of  men."  (  Lubbock.)  He 
lives  a  life  of  feeling  and  inipuNe.  He  adjusts  himself  to  his  environ- 
ment through  established  customs,  laws  and  traditions:  his  life  is 
the  life  rtf  the  grouj) ;  this  end  is  uppermost  in  his  education  and  is 
accomplished  through  the  fixedness  of  its  prescribed  education  The 
teacher  is  society  and  the  pupils  are  the  younger  members. 

Judging  from  the  different  accounts  given  of  the  savage  by  reli- 
able observers,  he  is  usually  gentle,  kind,  honest,  generous,  and  a|>- 
preciative  of  kindness.  Owing  to  his  peculiar  beliefs  he  is  beset  by  a 
thousand  dangers,  real  and  imaginary,  but  this  fen-  •       '  i  dormant 

•  Monroe.  P— Text  Book  in  the  HISTORY  OF  EDUCATIU.N.  i>  5. 


40 

nature,  and  so  he  is  usually  inclined  to  jollity.  Spencer,  quoting 
numerous  authorities,  describes  the  savage  as  having  acute  senses, 
quick  perception,  feeble  grasp  of  thought,  absence  of  the  idea  of  causa- 
tion, lack  of  constructive  imagination,  absence  of  surprise  and  curi- 
osity.* But  Dr.  Elymann,  after  carefully  testing  the  capacity  of  the 
natives  of  Central  Australia  with  regard  to  the  senses  of  sight  and 
hearing,  says  "I  found  that  both  senses  were  not  on  an  average  better 
developed  in  the  aborigines  than  in  Europeans. "f  "In  matters 
such  as  tracking,  which  are  concerned  with  everyday  life,  and  upon 
efficiency  in  which  they  actually  depend  for  their  livlihood,  the  natives 
show  conspicuous  ability.":]:  "The  hunting  life  is  of  necessity  one 
of  great  emotional  interest,  and  of  adequate  demand  for  acquiring 
and  using  highly  specialized  skills  of  sense,  movement,  ingenuity, 
strategy  and  combat. "§  But  their  reflective  faculties  are  hardly  at 
all  developed — they  cannot  count  beyond  four  or  five,  and  they  have 
little  conception  of  time  or  space,  or  of  past  or  future.  They  have 
strong  passions,  but  weak  reason. 

The  element  of  dramatic  and  mimetic  art  is  present,  showing 
itself  chiefly  in  dramatic  reproduction  of  the  activities  of  war  and 
chase.  "The  slavery  recognized  by  savage  and  barbarous  races  is 
preferable  in  kind  to  that  which  existed  for  centuries  in  late  European 
colonies.  The  relation  of  the  sexes  among  many  savage  tribes  is  more 
healthy  than  among  the  richer  classes  of  the  Mohammedan  world. 
As  a  supreme  authority  of  government,  the  savage  councils  of  chiefs 
and  elders  compare  favorably  with  the  unbridled  despotism  under 
which  so  many  cultured  races  have  groaned.  The  Creek  Indians, 
asked  concerning  their  religion,  replied  that  where  agreement  was 
not  to  be  had,  it  was  best  to  "let  every  man  paddle  his  canoe  his  own 
v*^ay:"  and  after  long  ages  of  theological  strife  and  persecution,  the 
modern  world  seems  coming  to  think  these  savages  not  far  wrong." || 

"The  old  Germans  and  Gauls  appeared  no  less  civilized  beside 
Roman  civilization  than  do  Kaffirs  or  Polynesians  beside  ours."  So 
that  it  would  be  natural  to  suppose  that  after  coming  in  contact  with 
civilization  savages  ought  to  show  advance  from  generation  to  gen- 
eration. Some  of  them,  in  fact,  have  given  us  proof  of  their  capacity 
for  culture.  For  example,  the  Maoris  of  New  Zealand  were,  at  the 
beginning  of  the  last  century,  fierce  cannibals ;  but  now  they  have 
several  representatives  in  the  New  Zealand  Legislature,  and  give  evi- 

*  Spencer,  H.— THE  PRINCIPLES  OF  SOCIOLOGY,  Vol.  I,  pp.  76,  87. 

t  Quoted  by  Spencer  &  Gillen— NATIVE  TRIBES  OF  CENTRAL  AUS- 
TRALIA, p.  24. 

t  Spencer.  B.  and  Gillen,  F.  J.— NATIVE  TRIBES  OF  CENTRAL  AUS- 
TRx\LIA,  p.  25. 

§  Dewey,  J.— INTERPRETATIONS  OF  SAVAGE  MIND,  p.  223. 

II  Tylor,  E.  B.— PRIMITIVE  CULTURE,  p.  29. 


41 

(lencc  of  ahuntlani  powtt-"  oi  .ulaptation  and  improvcmcm  i  ntv 
"take  <li}4iiihc«l.  active,  ami  intelligent  part  in  the  tlebatcs.  especially 
those  having  any  reference  to  Maori  interests."  •  Hut  what  is  re- 
markable is  that  usually  savages,  after  ct)ming  in  contact  with  our 
civilization,  begin  lo  die  away  individually  and  racially,  "it  is  not 
incapacity  for  civilization  so  much  as  dislike  for  it  and  love  of  the  old 
that  cause  so  often  the  abandt)nnient  of  the  ncwly-ac(|uired  culture  liy 

the  ex-savage  or  ex-barbarian Trimitive  peoples  under  the  exact 

rule  *.A  our  culture,  young  country  recruits  in  barracks,  and  schfxil- 
chiMren  have  much  in  common  ;  nostalgia  and  the  melancholy  phthisis 
that  follows  get  a  hold  upon  them  because,  as  Dr.  Lascgue  has  sai<l, 
"discipline,  narrow  subordination,  impose  upon  them  constantly  de- 
pressing unrest  and  restraint.'  "f  Professor  Dewey  in  accounting 
for  the  same  phenomena  says:  "The  savage's  repugnance  to  what  we 
term  a  higher  plane  of  life  is  not  due  to  stupidity  or  dullness  or  apathy 
— or  to  any  other  merely  negative  qualities — such  traits  are  a  later 
deveK)pment  and  fit  the  indiviilual  only  too  readily  for  exploitation 
as  a  tool  by  ■suj)erior  races.'  His  aversion  is  due  to  the  fact  that  in 
the  new  occupations  he  does  not  have  so  clear  or  so  intense  a  sphere 
fur  the  display  of  intellectual  and  practical  skill,  or  such  opportunity 
for  a  dramatic  play  of  emotion.  Consciousness,  even  if  superficial,  is 
maintained  at  a  higher  intensity. "J 

We  shall  conclude  our  estimate  of  primitive  man's  life  and  edu- 
cation with  a  suggestive  quotation  from  Lumholtz:  "The  philosophy 
of  their  entire  life  may  be  summed  up  in  the  sentence  which  one  of 
their  shamans  once  gave  utterance  to.  'To  pray  to  Grandfather  Fire 
and  to  put  up  snares  for  catching  deer,  that  is  to  lead  a  perfect 
life.'  "§ 

VI 

Results  of   Primitive   Civilization  and   Education. 

There  is  no  field  of  thought  or  action  that  one  can  examine  with- 
out coming  across  influences  that  ha<l  their  beginning  in  .savas^c  life. 
"On  our  very  physical  organization  the  hereditary  mark  of  old  times 
is  fixed ;  our  brains  were  hardened  and  our  nerves  were  steadied  by 
the  transmitted  results  of  tedious  usages.  The  ages  t»f  monotony 
had  their  use.  for  they  trained  men  for  age^  uhin  thev  lu-id  not  be 
moncjtonous."!! 

•Chamberlain.  .\    F— THK  CHILD,  p    297. 

t  Chamberlain.  .\    F-THK  CHIIJ).  p    ^'S 

t  Dewey.  J— I  NTKRrKKT.XTION  S  (»F  S.WAGE  MIND.  p.  223. 

§  Lumholtz.  C— CNKNOW  N   MEXICO,  p.  46  (Quoted  by  Hall.  C.  S.— AD- 

OLKSCENCK.  p  684.  Vol    II 
II  BaRehot.  \V— PHYSICS  &  POLITICS,  p  30 


42 

The  principal  institutions  of  mankind,  originating  in  the  early 
ages  of  savagery,  were  developed  in  the  age  of  barbarism,  and  are 
continuing  their  advancement  in  the  period  of  civilization.  The  soul 
of  man  has  had  steady  growth.  With  habitual  work  began  ethics; 
with  worship  began  religion,  art,  science,  philosophy.  In  addition  to 
the  institutions  that  we  prize  highly,  we  find  the  history  of  civilization 
strewn  with  beliefs  and  institutions  which  served  their  purpose  well 
at  first  and  were  of  great  value,  but  which  later  became  most  harm- 
ful when  they  continued  to  exist.  As  examples  of  such  institutions, 
sometimes  called  provisional  institutions,  may  be  mentioned  slavery, 
monarchy,  despotism,  extreme  conservatism,  war.  These  not  only 
developed  certain  virtues,  but  succeeded  in  killing  off  corresponding 
vices.  For  example,  war  generated  such  virtues  as  valor,  veracity, 
obedience,  discipline :  slavery  made  possible  the  leisure  necessary 
for  advancement. 

On  every  side  as  we  examine  item  after  item  of  life,  we  find  them 
to  be  processes,  customs  and  opinions  which  have  been  carried  for- 
ward from  early  ages,  and  are  now  existing  in  different  form  or 
usage.  "Progress,  degradation,  survival,  revival,  modification,  are 
all  modes  of  the  connection  that  binds  together  the  complex  network 
of  civilization."  *  As  examples  of  survival  we  may  refer  to  the  many 
popular  superstitious  beliefs  and  practices  of  which  we  see  evidences 
around  us  every  day — to  the  Corsican  vendetta  which  reminds  us  of 
the  time  when,  a  crime  having  been  committed,  it  was  the  duty  of 
the  aggrieved  family  to  take  vengeance  on  the  culprit's  family — to 
cure  by  exorcism — to  circumcision — to  use  of  amulets  and  charms — 
to  much  of  the  ceremonial  and  doctrine  of  modern  religions.  Fire 
and  water  and  incense  still  serve  purposes  of  purification ;  baptism, 
particularly,  continuing  the  idea  of  purification  through  the  magical 
power  of  water.  Primitive  man's  idea  of  sacrifice  is  still  seen  in 
the  eucharistic  meal,  and  the  custom  of  hair-ofifering  remains  in  the 
tonsure  of  priests  and  nuns.  The  idea  of  obligation  to  those  who 
have  enjoyed  our  hospitality  is  a  relic  of  the  primitive  belief  that 
those  who  eat  and  drink  together  are  bound  by  a  tie  of  fellowship 
and  obligation.  The  transposition  of  circumcision  to  infancy  is  a 
change  for  purpose  of  convenience :  "it  has  been  conclusively  proved 
that  circumcision  does  not  prevent  disease,  and  it  is  probable  that 
there  was  no  sanitary  intention  in  its  origin. "f 

As  examples  of  revival  we  may  refer  to  witchcraft  and  spiritual- 
ism.    To   illustrate  modification   we  may  point   to   such   customs   as 

*Tylor,  E.  B.— PRIMITIVE  CULTURE,  p.  Vol.  I,  p.  17. 
t  Crawley,  E.— THE  MYSTIC  ROSE,  p.  137. 


43 

leatliiii;  tilt-  dead  soldier's  hur>c  in  his  pravc.  when  formerly  it  was 
the  custom  to  bury  him  or  burn  him  with  his  dead  ma>tcr  that  he 
mijjht  serve  him  in  the  next  world.  An  interesting  illustration  is 
given  by  Professor  Ross:  "Our  pagan  ancestors,  when  they 
launched  a  ship,  bountl  a  captive  ti)  the  rollers  to  propitiate  the  God 
of  the  Sea.  The  bottle  of  wine  liroken  on  the  ship's  prow  to-day  is 
one  way  of  'reddening  the  keel"  of  the  vessel  to  be  launched  and  in- 
suring her  good  luck.  The  old  form  is  kept,  but  what  a  change  in 
the  spirit."  *  So.  too,  from  methods  of  divination,  which  arose  from 
the  notions  of  supernatural  interference,  we  have  ordeals,  oaths,  cast- 
ing of  lots,  anil  finally  games  of  chance.  Coin  tossing  and  drawing  of 
lots  are  matters  of  chance  to  us.  but  to  primitive  man  they  were 
appeals  to  the  gods,  to  decide  between  man  and  man.  In  this  way 
do  we  find  many  serious  practices  passing  over  into  playful  sports. 
Popular  sayings  and  meaningless  customs  are  also,  probably,  sur- 
vivals from  a  time  when  they  had  evident  practical  meaning. 

.-\niinism  was  the  starting  point  of  all  religious  development.  It 
is  in  all  times  the  basis  of  the  philosophy  of  religion.  "The  concep- 
tion of  the  human  soul  is.  as  to  its  most  essential  nature,  continuous 
from  the  pliilosophy  of  the  savage  thinker  to  that  of  the  modern  pro- 
fessor of  theology. "t  Primitive  conceptions  of  soul  as  a  thin 
vaporous  body  long  iicld  place  in  ancient  philosophy  and  theology. 
"The  classical  religions  bear  relics  of  the  ages  before  morality." 
(Jowett.)  Tylor  thinks  that  the  doctrine  of  ideas  developed  in  the 
classic  world,  was  suggested  by  the  savage  explanation  oi  object- 
souls — by  the  savage  animistic  explanation  of  things. "J  Elves, 
fairies,  nymphs,  goblins,  etc..  remind  us  of  the  spirits  and  demons  of 
savage  religion.  Belief  in  glmsts.  magic  and  exorcism  is  not  yet  a 
thing  of  the  past  ainong  civilized  communities.  Belief  in  the  soul's 
existence  after  death  is  also  an  early  belief;  but  with  the  savage  there 
was  an  absence  of  any  ethical  clement  connected  with  this  belief; 
this  element  comes  in  much  later  when  the  heaven  of  the  good  is  «!is- 
tinguished  from  the  hell  of  the  wicked. 

Many  of  the  ancient  religions  were  iiermeateil  \\>tli  ulca*  ol 
animal  worship  which  were  no  doubt  survivals  of  totemism :  this 
feature  was  particularly  i)rominent  in  the  religion  of  Egypt.  A  simi- 
lar explanation  may  be  given  of  the  worship  by  the  Jews  of  the  golden 
calf  and  the  bra/en  serpent.  The  second  commandment  point>  to  the 
prevalence  of  animal  worship  at  that  time.  Ancestor  worship  is  prob- 
ably also  intimately  connectetl  with  totemism.  In  addition  to  the  evi- 
dence alluded  to,  there  i-  ■•'1"^  .vidence  of  the  prc^riu  .•  ..f  t.-trmisni 

•Ross.  E.  A.— SC)CI.\L  r.sW  HoLot'.Y.  p.  142 

t  Tylor.  E.  B— PRIMITIVE  CLLTIRE.  V..1   I.  ,.   ?01. 

t  Tylor.  E    B— PRIMITIVE  CULTURE.  \  497. 


44 

among  the  Hebrews :  such  is  the  many  names  derived  from  animals 
and  plants — the  tracing  of  kinship  through  females  (Abraham  marries 
Sarah,  his  half-sister,  the  daughter  of  his  father — descent  through  the 
father  not  counting) — the  observance  of  exogamy  (to  this  day  it  is 
abhorrent  to  an  orthodox  Jew  to  marry  a  girl  bearing  the  same  name 
as  that  of  his  mother)  ;  the  food  taboos,  which  throw  new  light  on  the 
origin  of  the  dietary  laws  among  the  Jews,  causing  us  to  refer  them 
to  totemism  and  taboo  rather  than  to  hygiene.  Exogamy  has  given 
us  the  prohibited  degrees  of  marriage.  Refusal  by  orthodox  Jews 
to  marry  non-Jews  is  perhaps  also  a  remnant  of  exogamy.  Another 
effect  of  totemism  is  suggested  by  Frazer:  "Considering  the  far-reach- 
ing effects  produced  on  the  fauna  and  flora  of  a  district  by  the  preser- 
vation and  extinction  of  a  single  species  of  animals  or  plants,  it 
appears  probable  that  the  tendency  of  totemism  to  preserve  certain 
species  of  plants  and  animals  must  have  largely  influenced  the  organic 
life  of  the  countries  where  it  prevailed."  * 

Originally  taboo  was,  as  we  have  seen,  custom  asserting  itself 
as  a  religious  system  of  prohibitions.  Later  it  was  extended  and 
became  the  means  of  giving  rise  to  such  conceptions  as  those  of 
property  and  of  the  sanctity  of  the  marriage  tie — "conceptions  which 
in  time  grew  strong  enough  to  stand  by  themselves  and  to  fling 
away  the  crutch  of  superstition  which  in  earlier  days  had  been  their 
sole  support. "t  Traces  of  the  taboo,  having  the  old  religious  sanc- 
tion, may  be  seen  among  all  peoples.  For  instance,  among  the  Jews, 
"who  are  taken  as  example  because  they  represent  the  evolution  of 
society,"  to  this  day  we  know  how  great  an  element  is  played  by 
tabooed  food,  and  tabooed  work  during  certain  periods ;  orthodox 
Cohanim  (those  tracing  descent  from  the  priestly  tribe)  will  not 
go  beyond  the  cemetery  gates  when  attending  a  funeral,  nor  will 
they  enter  the  home  of  the  dead.  Among  the  Jews  of  Biblical  times 
we  find  such  clear  evidence  of  taboo  as  for  example  the  vow  of  the 
Nazarite — he  is  not  to  shave  his  head,  nor  partake  of  certain  food, 
nor  touch  a  dead  body — all  laws  of  taboo.  Some  of  the  rules  re- 
lating to  the  observance  of  the  Sabbath  also  seem  to  be  rules  of 
taboo.  So  also,  the  Semitic  doctrine  of  holiness  and  uncleanness  is 
a  relic  of  taboo.  "The  irrationality  of  laws  of  uncleanness,  from  the 
standpoint  of  spiritual  religion  or  even  of  the  higher  heathenism,  is 
so  manifest,  that  they  must  necessarily  be  looked  on  as  having  sur- 
vived from  an  earlier  form  of  faith  and  of  Society. "$  "The  ritual 
distinction  between  clean  and  unclean  things  coincides  by  accident, 

*  Frazer,  J.  G.— TOTEMISM  AND  EXOGAMY,  Vol.  I,  p.  87. 

t  TABOO,  IN  THE  "ENCYCLOPEDIA  BRITANNICA." 

t  Smith,  W.  R.— THE  RELIGION  OF  THE  SEMITES,  p.  449. 


46 

if  at  all.  with  ihc  comra>i  in-iwccii  tlic  wholesome  and  the  uir.vii'ic- 
sonie.'* 

'"The  precise  way  in  which  the  divine  sanction  was  annexed  to 

conduct  appears  to  have  l)ecn  the  extension  of  the  idea  of  tabu 

It  needs  l)Ut  the  socializintj  of  the  tabu  to  transform  a  jealous  retard 
for  sacred  etiquette  into  an  ethical  holiness  to  which  the  sight  of  evil 
oT  injustice  is  an  oflfense  and  an  abomination.  Here  lies  the  crisis 
in  the  history  of  relijjion.  Belief,  which  has  been  hitherto  a  political 
l)adjTe,  expressing,  on  the  one  hand,  the  alliance  of  the  members  of 
the  political  group,  and.  on  the  other,  its  separateness  from  any  <  •■  ■  • 
j^roup,  now  assumes  a  social  otVicc.  It  asserts  not  tribe  against  tii:  c, 
but  society  against  its  individual  members.  It  becomes  an  agent 
of  siK'ial  control.  This  mt)mentous  revolution  is  achieved  by  a  very 
simple  turn  of  ideas — namely,  by  conceiving  that  the  god  is  plea>ed 
not  by  sacrifices,  praise,  and  ritual,  but  by  certain  forms  of  conduct 
and  certain  elements  of  character."! 

Sexual  taboo  and  separate  organization  on  the  basis  of  sex  letl 
to  the  cmi)hasis  of  sex  characteristics,  to  the  development  of  separ- 
ate sex  activities,  and  to  the  debarring  of  women  from  many  of  man's 
activities.  "Sexual  taboo  would  seem  to  have  had  useful  results  not 
(^nlv  of  assisting  Nature's  institution  of  the  family  and  of  pro<lucing 
the  marriage  system,  by  preventing  license  both  within  and  without 

the   family    limits,   keeping   men    from   promiscuity   and    incest 

but  also  (»f  emphasizing  the  characteristic  qualities  of  each  sex  by 
preventing  a  mixture  of  male  and  female  temperaments  through 
mutual  influence  and  association,  and.  as  the  complement  to  this,  of 
accentuating  by  segregation  the  charm  each  sex  has  for  the  other  in 
love  and  married  life,  the  charm  of  complementary  diflfercnce  of  char- 
acter. Man  prefers  womanliness  in  woman,  and  woman  prefers  man- 
liness   in    man ;    sexual    taboo   has   enhanced    this    natural    preference 

Primitive  taboo  exists  now    in  all  its  pristine  strength.  th<nigh 

it  has  split  into  religious,  moral,  and  soci.il  habits,  each  distingni  '     ' 

by   more  or  less  different   terminology Human   nature   rcr. 

potentially  primitive,  and  it  is  not  easy  even  for  those  most  favored 
by  flesccnt  to  rise  above  these  primitive  ideas,  precisely  because  these 
ideas  '»^pring  eternally*  from  j>ermancnt  functional  causes. "J 

With  the  practices  described  as  initiation  ceremonies  began  the 
functions  of  the  teacher.     These  ceremonies  were  serious  •  > 

the  primitive  man;  with   us  we  find  many  of  these  ccreni 
served  in  such  practices  as  initiation  ceremonies  of  secret  societies, 

VAmcs.  K    S— THF,  PYSCHOLOGY  OF  REI.IGIOUS  EXPERIENCE,  p. 

133 
tRoss.  E.  A.— SOCIAL  CONTROL,  pp    144.  145 
t  Crawley.  E.— THE  MYSTIC  ROSE,  pp  214.  16.  4 


46 

and  in  hazing.  More  especially  in  religious  confirmations  as  observed 
in  Jewish  and  Christian  religions,  do  we  find  a  modification  of  these 
ceremonies.  "The  universality  of  these  rites  and  their  solemn  char- 
acter testify  impressively  to  a  sense  of  the  critical  importance  of 
this  age  almost  as  wade  as  the  race."*  This  influence  may  be  seen 
also  in  the  introducing  of  the  youth  to  manhood  in  classical  antiquity, 
and  of  the  youth  to  knighthood  in  mediaeval  times.  All  jive  atten- 
tion to  this  period  of  transition  to  manhood. 

And  so,  if  we  desired,  we  might  continue  to  point  in  every  direc- 
tion to  survival  and  modification  and  growths  whose  roots  reach 
back  to  the  ages  of  primitive  man. 

In  speaking  of  the  results  of  primitive  civilization  and  education 
we  have  been  referring  to  the  institutions  we  prize  so  highly,  and  to 
some  of  the  old  beliefs  which  we  have  outgrown,  but  which  we  can- 
not easily  shake  olif.  Let  us  briefly  refer  also  to  the  inner  causes  that 
produce  these  manifestations — to  the  instincts  that  lie  at  the  basis 
of  our  lives.  "The  silent  toil  of  one  generation  becomes  the  trans- 
mitted aptitude  of  the  next."  Not  only  our  institutions,  but  our  very 
conscience  is  a  product  of  the  past  life  of  the  race.  "It  is  more  likely 
that  the  on-looking  fellow-man  had  his  say  before  the  'spectator 
within  the  breast,'  and  that  conscience  is  the  reflection  of  public  opin- 
ion rather  than  public  opinion  the  reflection  of  conscience.  The  early 
history  of  moral  concepts  certainly  points  in  this  direction."!  Many 
of  our  instincts,  particularly  as  manifested  in  child  life,  may  be  traced 
directly  to  primitive  life,  where  they  were  slowly  being  worked  into 
the  texture  of  the  human  race.  Some  of  these  are  fear  of  darkness 
and  strangers,  shyness,  climbing  instinct,  appropriative  instinct,  fight- 
ing instinct,  gang  instinct.  In  fact  one  explanation  of  the  play  instinct 
is  that  it  has  developed  in  connection  with  primitive  activities — that 
it  is  ancestral  work — that  we  enjoy  doing  in  fun  the  things  our  an- 
cestors did  as  serious  business.  "The  child  is  a  little  compressed, 
synthetic  picture  of  all  the  stages  of  man's  evolution."  In  conclu- 
sion let  us  refer  also  to  the  elemental  virtues  developed  in  connec- 
tion with  primitive  industries  and  warfare — courage,  fortitude,  verac- 
ity, loyalty,  justice.  It  is  true  these  were  at  first  limited  to  the  group ; 
but  this  group  morality,  this  selfishness  of  the  group  led  to  the  de- 
velopment of  that  altruism  of  the  individual  without  which  life  is 
so  low  and  barren. 

*  Hall,  G.  S.— ADOLESCENCE,  Vol.  II,  p.  232. 
t  Ross,  E.  A.— SOCIAL  CONTROL,  p.  64. 


47 

CHAPTER  VII 

TRANSITION   FROM    LOWER  TO   HIGHER  STAGES 

^^  From  the  beginning  of  time  to  the  present,  the  tendency  of  cul- 
ture has  been  one  of  steady  progress — from  savagery  onward  to 
civilization,  (^ur  race  began  at  the  bottom  of  the  scale,  and  slowly, 
bv  painful  ctTorts  worked  out  the  elements  of  culture  antl  the  evolu- 
tion of  the  human  >«nil.  Savages  slowly  advanced  to  barbarism, 
and  barl)arians  slowly  advanced  to  civilization.  The  theory  of  human 
degradation,  to  explain  the  existence  of  savages  and  barbarians,  is 
not  accepted.  Savage  man  had  to  make  the  great  start;  his  was 
chieflv  a  struggle  for  existence,  but  it  meant  permanent  existence  and 
pritgrcss.  "A  highly  civilized  race  may  fail  in  producing  a  rapidly 
excellent  effect  on  a  less  civilized  race,  because  it  is  too  good  and  too 

ditTcrciit In  early  societies  there  were  no  such  great  differences. 

and  the  rather  su|)crior  conqueror  must  have  easily  improved  the 
rather  inferior  conquered."*  As  we  have  shown,  the  savage  was 
ciwnpletely  subordinated  to  the  grou|).  was  governed  by  custom  and 
tradition,  and  had  not  reached  the  stage  where  he  could  realize  the 
meaning  of  general  law  or  principle. 

Gradually  progress  is  made — gradually  differentiation  asserts  it- 
self, and  we  come  to  the  stage  of  barbarism.  The  land  bond  makes  a 
larger  political  organization ;  extension  of  activities  makes  for  a 
greater  division  of  labor;  a  body  of  knowledge  is  formulated,  and  a 
special  class  arises  to  preserve  it;  there  is  advance  in  theoretical  edu- 
rati«»n  and  this  makes  for  advance  in  practical  education;  property 
accumulates  and  assumes  permanent  form,  and  this  causes  a  cb 
from  descent  in  female  line  to  descent  in  male  line.  There  s;  •:  ., 
into  being  written  language  and  records,  means  of  measurement,  ob- 
servati<ins  of  the  workings  of  natural  law — and  the  sciences  make  their 
beginning.  In  this  stage  appear  the  first  conscious  prcKesses  of  in- 
struction and  interpretation,  and  the  first  real  educational  institutions. 
Sciences  are  gradually  evolving,  discoveries  are  being  made,  and 
mental  p«iwcr  is  constantly  improving. 

Slowly,  but  surely,  the  individual  is  being  emancipated  from  the 
slavish  bonds  of  custom.  He  is  constantly  gaining  more  and  more 
of  freedom;  finally  we  find  him  in  the  stage  of  civilization,  where  his 
choice  determines  nearly  all  he  docs  or  believes.  This  "change  from 
the  age  of  status  to  the  age  of  choice  was  first  made  in  the  states 
where  the  government  was  to  a  great  growing  extent  a  government 

•  Bagchot.  \V— PHYSICS  &  POLITICS,  p   M5 


48 

by  discussion."  (Grote.)  Onward,  and  still  onward  the  progressive 
races  are  moving,  socially,  intellectually,  spiritually.  Not  only  is  it 
instructive  to  look  a  little  backward,  to  the  origin  and  early  develop- 
ment of  civilization  and  education,  but  it  helps  us  to  a  better  under- 
standing of  the  present  and  a  better  shaping  of  the  future. 

"We  stand  upon  the  foundation  reared  by  the  generations  that 
have  gone  before,  and  we  can  l)ut  dimly  realize  the  painful  and  pro- 
longed efforts  which  it  has  cost  humanity  to  struggle  up  to  the  point, 
no  verv  exalted  one  after  all,  which  we  have  reached.  Our  gratitude 
is  due  to  the  nameless  and  forgotten  toilers,  whose  patient  thought 

and  active  exertions  have  made  us  what  we  are Contempt  and 

ridicule  or  abhorrence  and  denunciation  are  too  often  the  only  recog- 
nition vouchsafed  to  the  savage  and  his  ways.  Yet  of  the  benefactors 
whom  we  are  bound  thankfully  to  commemorate,  many,  perhaps  most, 
were  savages who  slowly  acquired  by  experience  and  trans- 
mitted to  us  by  inheritance  those  seemingly  fundamental  ideas  which 
we  are  apt  to  regard  as  original  and  intuitive."* 


CHAPTER  VIII 

Thoughts  Suggested  by  a  Study  in  the  Civilization  and  Education 

of  Primitive  Man. 

The  following  are  some  of  the  thoughts  suggested  to  us  by  our 
study  of  primitive  life  and  education : 

The  explanation  of  ideas  as  arising  from  instinctive  and  habitual 
types  of  activity  is  one  of  the  great  facts  of  modern  psychology.  It 
V'^  points  a  lesson  for  moral  education — moral  education  through  train- 
ing— through  insistence  on,  and  practice  of,  right  conduct,  through 
formation  of  proper  habit — not  through  the  study  of  precepts.  Pro- 
fessor Ross  thinks,  however,  that  "we  must  allow  an  eflfect  to  the 
continual  impact  of  precept.  Whether  as  the  master's  exhortation, 
as  oft-quoted  injunction,  as  memorized  text,  or  as  school-room  motto, 
a  persistent  suggestion  as  to  conduct,  provided  it  really  strike  the 
attention  and  be  brought  home  by  illustration  and  instance,  ought  to 
count  for  something.  The  mere  droning  or  dinning  of  maxims  is  per- 
haps vain,  but  that  which  is  really  taught  certainly  tends  to  sink  in. 
The  present  contempt  for  such  direct  methods  of  impressing  the  will 
is  an  accident,  due  to  the  fact  that  the  reigning  scepticism  usually 
cuts  for  the  man  the  bonds  in  which  precept  has  bound   the  child. 

*  Frazer,  J.  G.— THE  GOLDEN  BOUGH,  Vol.  I,  p.  449. 


49 

Let  us  not  forget  that  the  immemorial  device  of  stationary  societies 
to  preserve  their  ancient  order  has  been  to  steep  the  young  in  certain 
traditional  wisdom.  For  thousands  of  years  the  mere  Icamin/  ' 
rote  oi  Analects,  or  \'edas,  or  Koran,  or  Thorah,  has  been  not  unju  :.j 
deemed  of  great  effect  in  fixing  habits  of  thought  and  moulding  char- 
acter."* 

The  fact  tiiat  many  customs  and  ideas  were  found  to  be  very 
much  alike,  or  nearly  the  same,  in  very  ditTerent  parts  of  the  world, 
was  at  one  time  considered  evidence  that  the  peoples  of  those  parts 
had  brought  those  ideas  with  them  from  some  one  spot  and  stock 
common  to  both.  We  no  longer  rely  on  such  an  explanation  to  ac- 
count for  such  facts.  "The  experience  of  mankind  has  run  in  nearly 
uniform  channels;  human  necessities  in  similar  conditions  have  been 
substantially  the  same;  the  operations  of  the  mental  principle  have 
been  uniform  in  virtue  of  the  specific  identity  of  the  brain  of  all  the 

races  of  mankind Progress  has  been  found  to  be  substantially 

the  same  in  kind  in  tribes  and  nations  inhabiting  different  and  even 
disconnected  continents,  while  in  the  same  status,  with  deviations 
from  uniformity  in  particular  instances  produced  by  special  causes. "f 

We  have  seen  that  those  nations  which  insisted  that  the  individual 
is  of  no  consequence  in  the  presence  of  the  mass — that  no  originality 
be  given  play — have  gone  down  to  decay.  We  have  also  seen  that 
such  nations  as  put  no  check  at  all  upon  the  individual  also  went  down 
to  death.  And  so  we  have  come  to  believe  that  the  true  view  is  to 
consider  each  of  us  as  a  unit,  still  as  a  part  of  a  larger  unit.  "Liberty 
under  the  law,  allowing  a  field  for  every  human  activity  to  develop 
md  enrich  itself,  all  co-operating  for  a  common  end. "J 

Reform,  progress,  enthusiasm  for  change,  are  modern  fashions; 
conservatism  and  dread  of  change  was  the  fashion  of  old.  Even  ti>- 
day  traditions  of  progress  are  anything  but  universal.  Mohamme- 
lans.  Africans.  Chinese,  and  Indians,  to  say  nothing  of  savages,  hate 
change  ami  reform;  and  even  where  progress  is  an  ideal  it  must  ever 
fight  hard  against  the  strong  forces  of  conservatism. 

NLnny  of  the  practices  of  primitive  man.  which  were  formerly 
supposed  to  indicate  great  ferocity,  such  as  cannibalism,  l)loo<i  rc- 
\enge.  infanticide,  abandonment  of  the  old.  etc..  are  now  differently 
explained.  They  arc  seen  to  result  from  ignorance,  superstition,  or 
necessitv.  Primitive  man  shows  qualities  of  order  and  gcntlcncj*H. 
The  bad  man.  the  wild  man.  is  usually  killed  off.  He  has  less  chance 
of  survival  than  has  the  bad  man  in  our  modem  society.     In  fact,  the 

•  Ross.  R.  A.— SOCIAL  CONTROL,  p.  165. 

t  MofRan.  L    H— ANCIENT  SOCIETY,  pp.  8.  18 

I  Butler.  N    M-THK  MKANING  OF  n  •    ''""^     :     ." 


60 

question  has  been  raised  whether  nowadays  we  do  not  go  too  far 
in  fighting  natural  selection  and  saving  and  protecting  the  unfit.  But 
while  "it  is  true  that  rational  selection  often  interferes  with  the  action 
of  natural  selection ; while  philanthrophy,  in  so  far  as  it  is  de- 
voted  to  the   unfit,   does  weaken   the   race ; on   the   whole   the 

gain is  greater  than  the  loss.     The  note  of  humanity  is  worth 

all  it  costs  the  race.  With  it  are  bound  up  the  finer  social  feelings 
which  one  day  will  make  the  world  at  peace Meantime  it  is  im- 
portant to  remember  that  natural  selection  brought  about  just  that 
rise  of  intellect  which  to-day  favors  philanthropy  among  men."  * 

The  education  of  the  savage  was  obtained  in  connection  with 
1^  life  activities.  His  natural  instincts,  his  interests  were  given  play. 
He  was  trained  for  life,  for  citizenship  in  connection  with  life.  Our 
systems,  on  the  other  hand,  have  frequently  failed  to  give  play  to 
the  natural  instincts — if  they  did  not  actually  suppress  them.  We 
have  made  educational  machines — educational  factories — attempting 
to  produce  educated  people,  attempting  to  develop,  without  relation 
to  life.  Only  now  are  we  beginning  to  realize  the  mistake  of  ages  and 
trying  to  plan  a  "natural"  education  beginning  with  the  manifesta- 
tions of  activity  on  the  part  of  the  child  and  trying  to  lead  these 
along  paths  that  the  race  has  worked  out  and  found  valuable. 

So,  too,  many  of  our  activities  of  life  are  not  charged  with  that 
intense  interest  which  brings  out  the  best  that  is  in  us.  As  a  result 
we  have  many  of  the  diseases  of  civilization.  In  fact,  many  activities 
and  institutions  seem  to  call  forth  the  worst  that  is  in  us.  We  see 
the  children  in  our  schools  and  we  love  them.  What  does  life  do 
to  them  that  in  the  case  of  so  many  of  them  their  worst  instincts  are 
called  forth,  with  so  many  resulting  failures?  Drudgery  is  a  modern 
achievement.  "The  physical  and  mental  satisfaction  growing  out  of 
them  lend  to  labors  that  to  us  would  be  repulsive,  a  joy  that  makes 

even  such  a  life  worth  living  (speaking  of  savage  life) When 

society  becomes  divided and  the  upper  classes  exploit  the  lower, 

compelling  the  workers  to  support  those  who  sit  in  idleness,  or  labor 
in  non-productive  ways,  the  primitive  ends  of  labor  become  remote. 
And  when  the  laborer  gets  back  directly  only  a  moiety  of  the  bread  he 
produces,  and  when,  moreover,  his  social  status  sinks  because  of  his 
servile  labor,  then  the  direct  connection  between  effort  and  survival 
is  broken.  The  laborer  becomes  a  serf  doing  the  will  of  another, 
and  he  is  constrained  to  accept  contempt  as  a  sauce  to  compulsion. 
He  then  works  directly  to  ward  off  evils,  and  only  indirectly  to  pro- 
duce benefits The  old  joy  in  production,  found  where  men  work 

*  Home,  H.  H.— IDEALISM  IN  EDUCATION,  pp.  53,  54. 


51 

for  themselves,  gives  way  to  the  passive  endurance  of  the  man  who 
works  for  another  upon  compulsion."  •  \Vc  must  strive  to  remove 
many  of  those  artificial  conditii)ns  which  prevent  sclf-dcvclopmcnt, 
which  make  it  seem  that  success  ami  proj^ress  arc  matters  of  chance 
and  luck,  and  which  depreciate  the  value  of  the  personal  clement. 
Amelioration  and  improvement  of  the  economic  conditions  of  man 
have  ever  made  for  proj^ress,  piiysical  and  spiritual. 

The  initiation  ceremonies  of  the  savage  at  adolescence  emphasize 
for  us  the  great  changes  that  occur  at  that  period,  and  the  necessity, 
therefore,  of  taking  these  changes  into  c<^nsideration  in  our  educa- 
tion. In  adolescence  there  is  an  awakening  of  mental  life  on  every 
side ;  the  social  feelings,  particularly,  bloom  into  full  power,  and  re- 
ligion and  other  social  relations  make  their  greatest  appeal;  it  is  the 
period  of  change  in  the  whole  physical  and  psychical  nature.  The 
changes  occurring  at  this  period  have  in  turn  led  our  attention  to 
changes  occurring  at  other  periods,  to  the  functioning  characteristic 
of  each  period  of  growth,  and  to  the  necessity  of  seizing  and  directing 
instincts  at  their  moment  of  highest  functioning,  if  tlie  most  is  to  be 
made  of  them. 
K  "The  primitive  men  and  women  are  coaxed  or  constrained  to 
take  up  the  burden  of  the  white  man's  civilization,  and  those  who  can- 
not or  will  not  are  following  to  extinction  the  larger  wild  animals 
about  them  that  resist  domestication Their  faults  and  their  vir- 
tues are  those  of  childhood  and  youth.  They  need  the  same  careful 
and  painstaking  study,  lavish  care,  and  adjustment  to  their  nature 
and  needs.  The  inc.\t)rable  laws  of  forcing,  precocity,  severity,  and 
overwork,  produce  similar  results  for  both.  Primitive  peoples  have 
the  same  right  to  linger  in  the  paradise  of  childhood.  To  war  upon 
them  is  to  war  nn  children.  To  commercialize  and  oppress  them  in 
work  is  child  labor  on  a  large  scale. "t 

Professor  O.  T.  Mason  makes  an  interesting  suggestion:  he 
says  that  the  lower  races  feel  emulation  or  despair  in  the  presence  of 
higher  ones.  "When  we  try  to  develop  them,  he  thinks,  we  should 
folhnv  a  definite  programme  or  curriculum  and  begin  with  fcx>d  and 
hygiene,  then  should  come  dress,  then  shelter,  and  then  in  further 
.sequence,  war.  in<lustry,  ornament,  the  arts  of  gratification,  traffic, 
family,  organization,  government,  and  last  of  all  religion.  The  fipit 
of  these  arc  easiest  and  the  last  progressively  hardest  to  change,  but 
to  leap  consecutive  stages  in  this  order  or  to  invert  its  categories  is 
fatal  in  main  ways,  because  of  the  unnatural  strain  to  both  the  physi- 

•  DeGarmo.  C— INTERKST  AND  EDUCATION,  p  10 
t  Hall.  G   S— ADOLESCENCE.  Vol    II.  p  (A9 


62 

cal  and  psychic  organism Overstimulated  savages  generally  per- 
ish miserably  or  lapse  to  a  lazy  vegetative  existence  in  the  presence  of 
higher  stocks."*  Herein  lies  for  us  a  lesson  as  to  the  education  of 
the  children  of  the  negroes  of  this  country.  "Mr.  C.  D.  Warner  in- 
sists that  the  education  of  the  children  of  the  negroes  of  this  country 
should  be  of  the  lower  and  not  of  the  higher  kind.     They  are,  he  says, 

an  inferior  race He  urges  that ...  the  negro  is  injured  by  the 

mere  top-dressing  of  culture  as  v^ell  as  by  being  the  pawn  of  politics, 
and  should  not  be  treated  like  superior  races.  His  training  should  be 
essentially  practical,  domestic,  agricultural,  chiefly  if  not  entirely  in- 
dustrial."f  "Where  education  is  concerned  with  different  races,  the 
first  question  is,  What  are  the  needs  and  capacities  of  this  race?  The 
second  question  is,  What  culture  material  ought  the  curriculum  to 
provide  that  will  best  meet  this  race's  needs  and  develop  this  race's 
capacity?  Only  in  barest  outline  is  human  nature  the  same  the  world 
over.  There  must  be  an  adaption  of  educational  material  to  racial 
nature.  Each  race  should  have  developed  through  its  education  those 
traits  which  are  nature's  characteristic  gifts  to  it.  Thus  human  so- 
ciety gains  the  strength  of  a  diversity  of  gifts,  and  avoids  the  weakness 
of  uniformity.  You  cannot  make  a  good  Filippino,  or  a  good  African, 
by  supplying  an  education  that  would  make  a  good  Anglo-Saxon. "$ 

Our  study  of  man  has  brought  about  a  change  of  method  in  mis- 
sion and  setlement  work.  We  no  longer  seek  to  save  souls  by  chang- 
ing religious  beliefs  and  forms  of  worship,  but  instead  we  seek  to 
teach  and  civilize  by  developing  in  the  savage  or  in  the  downtrodden 
"an  appreciation  of  clothing,  cleanliness,  privacy,  order,  property  and 
home — the  elementary  goods  of  the  white  man.  It  is  this  patient 
guidance  of  backward  peoples  along  the  path  by  which  the  civilized 
races  have  reached  their  present  elevation  that  alone  can  save  them. 
The  lightning  process  of  converting,  baptizing,  and  veneering  with  a 
thin   layer  of  morality  makes   the   docile   neophyte  whose   character 

collapses  as  soon  as  the  supporting  hand  is  withdrawn The 

patient  fostering  of  new  wants  and  imparting  of  new  standards  of 
appreciation  produce  results  less  brilliant,  but  far  more  enduring."§ 

A  study  of  the  progress  of  the  human  race  shows  the  great  im- 
portance of  imitation  and  suggestion  as  a  factor  in  that  progress.  This 
emphasizes  the  influence  of  the  models  which  we  present  for  imitation 
in  literature,  business,  and  political  life,  and  more  especially  in  the 
classroom.    "The  disseminator  of  wrong  ideals  is  altogether  more  dan- 

*  Hall,  G.  S.— ADOLESCENCE.  Vol.  II,    p.  721. 

tHall,  G.  S— ADOLESCENCE,  Vol.  II,  p.  675— (Quoting  THE  EDUCA- 
TION OF  THE  NEGRO:  President's  Address,  American  Social  Science 
Assn.,  Washington,  May  7,  1900). 

tHorne.  H.  H.— PHILOSOPHY  OF  EDUCATION,  p.  166. 

§  Ross,  E.  A.— SOCIAL  CONTROL,  p.  335. 


63 

gerous  to  society  than  the  (li>scniin.itMr  <•!  wronj^  ojumon^  iir.c-^Ti- 
galurs  and  thiiikcr>,  working  in  the  >phcrc  of  upiniun.  may  .saicly  be 
left  free  to  speak  and  print,  because  their  errors  will  spread  slowly  and 

will  likely  be  overtaken  by  the  truth  before  they  j^ct  very  far 

But  artists  working;  in  the  sphere  of  personal  ideals,  may  not  be  left 
entirely  uncensored,  seeing  that  any  poison  they  emit  circulates  so 

rapidly Here  is  where  society  receives  its  just  punishment  in 

case  it  allows  bad  men  to  rtoat  to  the  top  in  business,  finance,  or  iK>li- 
tics.  Being  imitated  by  the  young,  they  spread  their  views  through- 
out the  social  body."* 

One  of  the  effects  of  personality  on  progress  is  seen  in  the  in- 
fluence of  leadership.  Through  leaders  the  race  is  infected  and  makes 
progress.  Through  >uch  leadership  is  produced  a  great  part  of  moral 
evolution.  As  an  illu>tration  L»f  the  influence  of  such  leadership  on 
the  tone  of  a  nation  we  shall  refer  to  the  recent  influence  of  President 
I\i>osevelt.  "Men  are  guided  by  type,  not  by  argument;  some  winning 
instance  must  be  set  up  before  them,  or  the  sermon  will  be  vain,  and 

the  doctrine  will  not  spread It  is  the  life  of  teachers  that  is 

catching,  not  their  tenets. "f  In  the  classroom  the  teacher's  personality 
is  the  essential  element — a  personality  having  enthusiasm  for  the  best 
things  is  essential.  President  Garfleld's  ideal  of  a  college,  "Mark  Hop- 
kins on  the  other  end  of  a  log."  is  an  illustration  of  the  same  idea. 

Occasionally  we  hear  wails  as  to  our  civilization  making  men 
efTeminate  and  unwarlike.  As  a  result  we  have  such  movements  as  the 
Boy  Scout  movement  of  to-day.  However  good  such  movements  arc. 
the  fact  is  that,  when  the  jiroper  occasion  calls  for  it.  we  have  better 
soldiers  than  ever.  We  need  but  to  point  to  the  American  soldiers 
of  the  Civil  War.  the  Germans  of  the  Franco- Prussian  war,  and  the 
Japanese  of  the  late  war.  In  the  age  of  culture,  however,  a  proper, 
sensible  motive  is  necessary  to  call  forth  the  best  soldierly  qualities. 
It  is  no  doubt  true  that  many  of  the  virtues  which  we  value,  and  which 
'^ihe  primitive  man  lacked,  tend  to  make  us  less  warlike— a  thing  not  to 
be  regretted.  Among  such  virtues  may  be  mentioned  an  appreciation 
of  the  beautiful,  a  love  of  meditation,  a  wider  bond  of  -  '  v,  and 

a  greater  valuation  of  spiritual  wealth  than  <>f  physical  ;  The 

fact  that  we  can  stand  the  strains  of  civilization,  where  primitive  man 
wastes  away  in  its  presence,  may  be  another  ()roof  of  «>ur  strength. 

Criticism  is  fre(|uently  heard  of  the  fact  that  the  Stale  i>  a»uming 
many  of  the  home  duties,  such  as  medical  examination,  etc.,  but  the 
State  is  compelled  to  take  over  many  of  these  duties,  be*  iUzing 

the  nece.ssity  of  their  performance  it  yet  finds  the  pare  »le  to 

perform  them,  since  they  are  in  many  casea  over-worked  drudge 

•  Ros>.  K   .\— SOCIAL  PSYCHOLOGY,  p.  133. 
t  Bagchot.  \V— PHYSICS  &  POLITICS,  p.  90 


64 

beasts  of  work.  "Daily  work  has  tamed  man ;  has  taken  the  fierceness 
out  of  him ;  has  transformed  him  into  a  mild  machine."  But  the  ques- 
tion now  is  whether  we  are  not  pressing  this  work  too  far,  and  whether 
we  are  not  turning  him  into  nothing  but  a  machine.  We  agree  with 
Laurie  that  "at  all  stages  of  educational  history  the  family  is  the  chief 
agency  in  the  education  of  the  young,  and,  as  such,  it  ought  never 
to  be  superseded ;"  but,  either  the  State  must  see  that  the  family  is 
able  to  perform  its  proper  function,  or  it  must  assist  it  in  this  work. 

We  hear  much  wailing  about  loss  along  religious  lines,  but  really 
there  is  little  cause  for  worry  because  we  happen  to  be  discarding 
many  of  the  ancient  beliefs.  "Dogma  after  dogma  may  be  surren- 
i  dered,  but  the  soul  of  religion  lives  on  in  that  idealistic  anthropology, 
which  is  voiced  at  one  time  in  the  teachings  of  Jesus,  the  theology  of 
Paul,  or  the  meditations  of  Marcus  Aurelius,  and  finds  expression  at 
another  time  in  the  democracy  of  Mazzini,  the  philosophy  of  Schopen- 
hauer, or  the  poetry  of  Walt  Whitman While  the  priest  is  leav- 
ing the  civil  service,  the  schoolmaster  is  coming  in.  As  the  State 
shakes  itself  loose  from  the  Church,  it  reaches  out  for  the  school."* 
The  trouble  with  much  of  the  older  religions  is  that  what  was  in- 
tended to  control  conduct  has  become  too  much  dogma  or  creed. 
There  has  been  too  much  degeneration  from  the  ethical  to  the  cere- 
monial. This  may  be  said  not  only  of  religious  organizations,  but  also 
of  well-meaning  fraternal,  social  organizations  that  could  accomplish 
much  good,  but  which  permit  too  much  of  their  time  and  energy  to  be 
eaten  up  by  ceremonial,  which  was  probably  originally  intended  as 
a  means,  and  not  as  an  end.  "Religion  is  far  more  vital  in  human 
experience  than  present  statistics  indicate Religious  conscious- 
ness is  identical  with  the  core  of  the  social  consciousness — with  the 
inner  soul  of  conscience,  of  duty,  of  patriotism,  of  social  righteousness 

Religion,  in  a  psychical,  as  well  as  a  scriptural  sense,  is  a  matter 

of  the  spirit  rather  than  of  the  letter The  democracy  and  the 

science  of  the  present  time  demand  great  readjustments  in  the  relig- 
ious institutions The  scientific  and  psychological  view  of  all 

doctrines  is  that  they  are  working  hypotheses,  subject  to  constant 
modification  and  revision  in  the  light  of  further  experience  and  re- 
flection.   The  Church  has  not  yet  accepted  this  view."f 

"It  has  been  discovered  that  slavery  is  not  only  injurious  to 
slaves  but  also  to  their  masters.  The  extension  of  the  ideal  involved 
in  this  insight  is  being  felt  in  reference  to  many  other  groups.  The 
education  of  woman  and  her  incorporation  into  the  intellectual,  prac- 
tical life  of  the  race  are  justified  both  by  her  own  growth  under  such 
conditions  and  by  her  contributions  to  an  ideal  society.     The  motive 

*  Ross,  E.  A.— SOCIAL  CONTROL,  pp.  213.  175. 

tAmes,  E.  S.— THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  RELIGIOUS  EXPERIENCE,  pp. 
233,414,368,359,320. 


55 

expresses  itself  in  various  "rcfi)rni '  niovenicnt.s  tlcalin^  \Mth  temper- 
ance, chilli-labor,  prison  reform,  social  hygiene,  juvenile  crime,  pov- 
erty, foreij^  immif^ration,  peace  movements,  race  problems,  conges- 
tion of  population  in  cities.  a<lministration  of  charity,  etc.  All  this 
grounded  upon  the  conviction  that  the  persons  aflfected  deserve  belter 
things  from  society  and  that  society  deserves  from  them  more  than 
they  are  able  to  render  under  present  conditions.*'*  Woman,  par- 
ticularly in  the  middle  and  higher  classes,  has  been  suffering  in  her 
physical,  mental  and  moral  development,  largely  because  she  has  been 
kept  away  from  many  of  the  realities  of  life.  "The  remedy  for  the 
irregularity,  pettiness,  ill-health,  and  uiiscrviceablcness  of  modern 
woman  seems  to  lie  along  educational  lino.  Xot  in  a  general  and 
cultural  education  alone,  but  in  a  special  and  occupational  interest 
and  practice  for  women,  married  and  unmarried.**! 

The  importance  of  education  in  the  evolution  of  the  soul  cannot 
be  surticiently  emphasized.  As  Professor  Crawley  well  says,  every- 
one would  still  be  primitive  were  it  not  for  education. "J  It  is  encourag- 
ing in  the  study  of  what  is  inheritable,  and  what  is  contributed  by 
environment  and  education,  to  find  that  the  vices  and  mutilations  of 
the  parents — acquired  characteristics — do  not  descend  to  children, 
even  though  a  weakened  constitution  may  be  the  result  of  the  parents* 
sins  or  misfortunes.  C.reat.  however,  is  the  task  and  duty  of  educa- 
tion. All  educational  agencies — home,  school,  vocation,  state,  church — 
must  use  unremitting  efforts  to  impress  upon  the  units  of  society 
the  proper  valuations  of  life.  Man  acts  according  to  "values*'  placed 
by  him.  Men  fail  oftener  because  they  do  not  value  what  they  ought 
to  value,  than  they  do  because  they  don't  know  what  they  ought  to 
know. 

In  speaking  of  the  elements  of  social  valuation  Professor  Ross 
points  out  that  first  those  (jualities  by  which  a  people  overcomes  its 
enemies  and  maintains  an  orderly  life — courage,  justice,  honesty, 
fidelity — become  "virtues";  that,  secondly,  those  pleasures  which  arc 
exclusive,  collision-provoking,  or  liable  to  excess — love  of  money, 
feasting,  drinking,  fighting — are  steadily  depreciated;  that,  thirdly, 
society  appreciates  the  safe  pleasures — companionship,  sport,  health, 
beauty,  humor,  knowledge,  personal  excellence — pleasures  which  can 
be  e.xpanded  without  limit  and  without  clash  with  others;  those  which, 
being  ideal,  do  not  wastefully  consume  strength  and  life.§ 

The  great  task  is  to  influence  the  members  of  society  to  accept 
those  valuations  of  the  "gcxKls  of  life*'  which  have  been  accepted  by 
the  race  as  best  and  highest. 

V\mcs.    E.    S— THE    PSYCHOLOGY   OF    RELIGIOUS    EXPERIENCE, 

P  400 
tThom.is  \V.  I— SEX  &  SOCIETY,  p.  245 
t  Crawley.  E— THE  MYSTIC  ROSE,  p  4 
§  Ross.  E    A— SOCIAL  CONTROL,  p   330 


66 

BIBLIOGRAPHY   OF   BOOKS   QUOTED 

Ames,  E.  S.— THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  RELIGIOUS  EXPERI- 
ENCE, New  York,  1910. 

Bagehot,  W.— PHYSICS  AND  POLITICS,  London,  1873. 

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